Lab Notes

Pry System

Inspiration
I often get asked ”Where do you get your inspiration for drawing icons?” The answer isn’t always a straightforward one, but mostly I draw what I see in my surrounding world. But how does this translate into making such a ”non-reallife” thing as computer folders?
My inspiration for Pry came when looking at the wireless Apple aluminum keyboard. Turning your keyboard (if you’re fortunate to have such a thing) into the angle that Pry is drawn at, you can clearly visualize the bent aluminum without the keys thereby stating the obvious design reference.





Creativity
Very early in the Pry creation process I decided to go two ways with the set.
• Have a super clean minimalist etched folder variant where the symbols are etched into the folders like on Apples default set.
• Have a set with real life drawn out objects, where I could go nuts with details.
This division allowed me to do some pretty crazy things. The obvious example being the grass cover that turned into a golf folder after seeing a Masters tournament on TV. This icon in all its 512x512 pixel glory is not exactly the obvious usable folder given Apples new minimalistic OS X Leopard UI approach.





The fun of creating overlaying objects for me boils down to this: It keeps creativity flowing, cause I can use my everyday inspirations to do real life objects on digital folders.  On the other hand doing the etched folders gives you time to practice how to convey symbolism. This is icon designing in its purest form.
Some would argue that the new direction in which Apple is taking its UI is limiting for creativity. It might hold true, but looking at a simplistic UI without too much clutter tends to up the users productivity. So I guess it’s a smart move.





Apple has recently started doing icons as head-on perspective folders. This is beneficial for a lot of reasons that I will not get into here. But problem persists: It tends to limit creativity, cause you can no longer play with different styles. I simply chose to do perspective on Pry cause I really wanted to know if it would really work with all Leopards features (like Stacks and Coverflow). Second, I just think perspective folders look better. I think the end result with the close to 45degree angle works pretty well in Pry, but I’ll let the user be the judge of that. (Go ahead and take them for a Coverflow spin).
Another point of doing icons for me personally, besides having some good old fun, is to challenge myself. Push myself a bit. Cause I would never improve otherwise. Doing 3d perspective folders in Photoshop really tested my abilities, and I learned so much along the way. So perspective or no perspective, that’s the question!
Sizes
Recently it has become quite the design fad to do complete perspective changes on the 32 x 32 pixel sizes and below. They mostly get turned into head on perspectives. I wanted to avoid that for 32 x 32 size with Pry, seeing that a 32 pixel squared canvas is more than plenty to convey real perspective. 16px is another matter. In list view, head on folders simply look sharper and cleaner.





On the opposite end of the scale we find the new opportunities that Leopard brings. 512x512 pixels. I read in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines that the 512 resource should have its own detailing, and should be able to stand on its own. I took that literally, so I put in a lot of details at the 512. Turning off the extra details, as you descent through sizes is tedious but absolutely crucial for a great end result. A good example of this is the absolute necessity of a noise layer to make the 512 and 256 px sizes look like aluminum. This is not really noticeable at 128 px. So turning it off makes that size a bit more crisp and sharp.
These were just some random ramblings about my newest icon set Pry. You can download it right here at the downloads section of Enhanced Labs, or you can go visit Jonas Rask Design