[marginalia_nu]

It's kind of a shame how we keep trying to make icons look uniform, either in color, or in shape.

Like I open the app drawer on my Android phone and there are like 16 different icons, all different Google apps, all are round and various abstract configurations of the same exact four colors.

Feels like we're falling into the same trap that Gothic handwriting did with the minims. Yeah it looks very pretty but it's almost completely illegible since we've taken away all the things that help set icons apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minim_(palaeography)#/media/Fi...

[mook]

Yeah, I learned that using Netscape 6 with a row of blue balls for icons; going from the older Mozilla builds with the Netscape 4-style icons it was a definite downgrade. Pheonix had a row of orange balls; they later switched to IE-style icons with distinct shapes, which was better.

The recent Android releases where everything is a squircle really sucks too.

[lavataco]

Google has been universally panned for using their logos as app icons. I think most people in this thread are talking about UI vs app icons (essentially avatars for apps at this point).

[marginalia_nu]

Visually uniformity is a broad trend that affects both areas. The monochrome line-art UI icons that are used everywhere are every bit as bad as Google's app icons.

Here are some icons I screenshotted off a website. I challenge you to tell me what they mean

http://www.marginalia.nu/junk/icons.png

http://www.marginalia.nu/junk/icons2.png

Hint: „ǝsıɹdɹǝʇuǝ ʎɹʇ„ sı dn oʇ ƃuıʇuıod ʍoɹɹɐ ǝɥʇ puɐ „sǝsıɹdɹǝʇuǝ„ sı ǝqoʃƃ ǝɥ⊥