[Aquamacs-devel] Aquamacs 2.0 icon - plans

[Nathaniel Cunningham]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 7:38 AM, David Reitter <david.reitter at gmail.com>wrote:

> Thanks for your input, Kevin.
>
>  Amid all the back and forth and different icon ideas, I must admit, I've
>> lost track of why re-branding is even necessary. If you're worried about Is
>> there an icon designer out there who can re-render the current Gnu head to
>> look good at 512 pixels, and perhaps subtly update it along the lines you
>> suggest? An evolution, as opposed to a total break?
>>
>
> Well, the reason is that the icon is not a Mac-like icon in the sense that
> it does not represent a metaphor for "editor", "text", "writing", or even
> "general-purpose text, code and planning tool".
>
> Nathaniel kicked this off most recently, perhaps he can add to that.
>

Sure.  Almost all app icons display something related to the application's
function, or at least its name.  A few of the less direct icon metaphors
that have come up: Transmit -- a truck delivers physical items, like FTP
delivers data files; Cyberduck -- who knows what the program has to do with
a duck, but the icon certainly connects to the name.  Textwrangler has a W
in rope, so that connects to "wrangler".

Our app is Aquamacs Emacs, but the icon is a gnu.  To the new user who isn't
familar with GNU Emacs, the GNU connection is not apparent or important.
Not only that, but GNU is nothing particular to Emacs.  The list of "GNU
Projects" at http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/ lists 340 software packages, of
which 40+ have names beginning with GNU (and Emacs isn't one of that
subset).  It's not practical to give Mac ports/builds of GNU programs a gnu
icon (even with a fresh design for each distinct program).

But it has become apparent as we've crafted other options, and collected
input on them, that the distinctiveness of the icon is more important than
the connection it makes to the app's function or name.  Nobody's even quite
sure what to call the existing icon -- horse, bison, etc -- but that hasn't
hurt its appeal, apparently.  We're now in the company of a program like
Adium (where the green duck icon doesn't really connect to anything).

I had hoped we could come up with something that was more expressive of what
Aquamacs was for or about, especially with a mind for new users.  Also,
following the Apple guidelines is an important consideration for a program
that is explicity designed as a Mac-like version of an app that's already
available for OS X in its plain cross-platform form.  But at this point, I'm
good with a revision of the exisiting icon.  It's been impossible to come up
with an icon that conveys what Emacs is beyond simply "editor", and to make
it stand out in the Dock.

--Nathaniel
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