Illustration/Icons
Very detailed, nicely illustrated instructions on How to Cut… almost any food. Now this is what I paid kottke for.
Bullet Madness is exactly that. (via)
Also seen on Rajat’s new blog is the Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness.
The Graphic Design Olympics: Yep, love the angled grid on the ‘72 Munich icons and I’ve always liked the ‘68 version (dig the wresting pictogram!). And if you want to judge ‘em for yourself, the excellent Dover Handbook of Pictorial Symbols is well worth the 11 bucks.
Avast, mateys! Here there be pirate flags.
300 images from 1800 sites is a collection of standard web graphics (arrows, printers, shopping carts) from well-known sites. There’s more of the same on iawiki. Remember kids: stealing ideas = good, stealing end products = bad.
GUIdebook is “a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing as many Graphical User Interfaces as possible.”
Yep, it’s true: elevator door icons are really difficult to distinguish. (ps - heh heh, they said “Look and Feel Australia”)
OK, I take this all back. Those icons are useless. Color language and forms are too complicated to differentiate from each other. So, I guess my first instinct was right.
So, what do you think of the new Adobe CS icons? Surely you have an opinion. What do I think? I’ll tell you…
My first reaction was: “You’ve got to be kidding! Those aren’t icons.” But I have to say that after thinking about them (and using them for a bit) I am going to take the probably controversial position that they’re completely successful. For one, they don’t look like any of the other icons around them. This means both that they are highly salient and that they cohere as a design system and brand extension. And, really, the old icons don’t communicate any more useful information than the new ones. Finally, they’re easily distinguishable. Sure, you have to remember that the feather is Photoshop and the flower is Illustrator, but once you do (and it takes about 2 launches at most) they separate from each other quite well, probably due to the significantly different shapes. Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t upgraded your Photoshop yet, I have three words for you: nested layer sets.
Christina’s Widgetopia collects, annotates, and categorizes web UI tools (“article tools”, “ratings”, etc.).
While Learning to Love the Pixel: Exploring the Craft of Icon Design is ostensibly about designing icons, it is the discussion of craft in interface design that I find most satisfying. I have long felt craft to be undervalued in the context of corporate design projects. The article does a nice job of beginning the discussion of the role of craft in user experience design while implicitly raising the higher-level question of where it makes the most sense to prioritize craft in an interface design project.
Self-defence with a Walking-stick: The Different Methods of Defending Oneself with a Walking-Stick or Umbrella when Attacked under Unequal Conditions (PartI) (via caterina)
Ephemera Now—ads and illustrations from the middle of the century. Mmmm.. pretty pictures. (via erin)
Let’s draw geeky stuff: Hiro’s drawing class page and Fantasy Art: Basic Pose and construction
Traffic signs of the world (via the ever-lovely xplane)
Do yourself a favor and check out Pictoplasma, “The first global collection of contemporary character design.” (if the interface annoys you, I can highly recommend the book)
AIGA: Symbol Signs is a collection of free iconic symbols for all you airport designers out there.
Found this nice (mac-focused) introductory tutorial—How to Make Icons—up at IconFactory (dang frames!).
I’m supposed to be writing some cross-browser, cross-platform DHTML, so of course I’ve been finding out that you can convert Mac icons for Windows. Now I don’t have to be jealous of my Mac-using friends and their rad Transformers icons.