[texworks] Icon v5 (was: About the Icon Design)

[Jonathan Kew]

On 16 Jul 2009, at 13:59, Jérome Laurens wrote:

> Le 15 juil. 09 à 20:11, Stefan Löffler a écrit :

>> Now I did (try) ;). See attachment.
>> Changelog:
>> * Added more depth
>> * Changed the camera angle to include 3rd side and to show the  
>> depth a
>> little better
>> * Made the edges of the T straight
>> * Some minor changes (I had to adjust light positions to keep the
>> highlights, make the specular color of the ink slightly blue-ish to  
>> keep
>> it from flooding the image with white, etc.)
>>
>> Remarks, comments, criticisms, suggestions, ... anyone?
>>
>> Regards
>> Stefan
>> <tw-logo-blender-v5-512px.png>
>
> It is much better but I still feel a bit uncomfortable with it.
> My problem is that blender creates an image too close to the reality  
> to accept some inconsistent details.
> The main problem is that a movable metal type is a very small object  
> whereas you have given it a bigger size (I guess but I am pretty  
> sure you did)
> This causes 2 problems
> 1) the perspective is exaggerated: the top side is twice as big as  
> the bottom side, which means that the distance between the eye and  
> the top side is half the distance between the eye and the bottom  
> side. Either the observer is at 5mm of the type or the type is 50cm  
> deep... None is realistic.

I'm not sure the "apparent size" issue is really a problem; if the  
icon implies that my eye is 5mm from the piece of type, fine! It's  
obviously greatly magnified, and so I don't have any clear expectation  
as to where the observer's viewpoint should be in relation to the  
object. But yes, reducing the perspective effect a bit would probably  
be good; it seems rather over-dramatic, IMO.

> 2) the shadows are not properly rendered. Actually, you are using a  
> point light source, hence the very precisely shaped shadow regions.
> In reality, the object is smaller that the light source, which means  
> that the shadows must be blurred.

A little blur might be nice, but I'd keep it quite limited, otherwise  
I don't think it'll hold up well at smaller sizes.

>
> I have played with inkscape (to evaluate it more seriously), here is  
> what I ended with:<tw-16-1.png>
>
> <tw-grey-256.png><tw-tango-256.png>
>
>
> It is tango style. Very nice technically, but it is far too naive  
> IMO, not as pro as firefox icon:-(

That's nice; the addition of the pen could add interest to the icon,  
while maintaining the distinctiveness of the T on a piece of type.   
And the "TeXworks" branding on the pen is a lovely touch. :) (Except  
that the "w" should be lowercase, please!) But yes, the style --  
although quite tango-like, and might work if it was only for use on  
small toolbar buttons -- is much too simplistic for an application  
icon. The "pseudo-photographic" look of the Blender images is much  
more fitting.

(BTW, as regards size of the "objects", the pen and type are of course  
completely out of proportion to each other! But I don't actually think  
that matters...)

> Stefan, would it be possible to render the background type in a  
> similar position ?
> Then maybe we can add a pen.

Yes, if we had the Blender-rendered T (rotated somewhat), with the  
addition of a pen that's more like the one in Jérôme's first image, I  
think the result could look really good. Excellent work, guys! :)

Thanks,

Jonathan