geany/geany — pull request #55 by emanuelpalm (2012-07-28 09:26:04+00:00)
Title: New Geany application icon.

So, I've been exploring Geany a bit for a little while now, and I must say I quite enjoy the IDE quite a lot. It took me, however, a couple of tries before I finally gave it a real chance. The reason, to be very frank, is because I the application icon gave me the impression that the program has a made-at-home-hack rather than a substantial IDE suited for all kinds of programming situations, which I discovered it is. So, I took the liberty of making a new Geany icon in Inkscape, made a fork and sent a pull request.

The idea of this pull request is not necessarily for the community to merge it with no second thoughts, which I don't believe is going to happen. Rather, I would like to start a discussion on the role of the application icon. If, after the discussion, people are happy to use the icon, I'll gladly let the community use it at leisure. If this discussion leads to the community switching to another icon, then at least the community saw the validity of my point. If this leads to the original icon not being replaced, then at least there was a consideration being made.

So, as a discussion starter, I'm here listing the roles and priorities I believe the application icon should fulfill:

1. To single out the application from the crowd.

The lamp and the name 'Geany' fulfill this role very well. I guess its some kind of pun referring to rubbing the magic lamp and using the genie popping out to fulfill your programming ambitions. Its a simple and distinguishable symbol.

2. To communicate the ambition that has been, and is being put into the software.

I don't believe there is any one programmer who wants to use software that is dying or lacks a community or company continually backing it up. By labeling a piece of software with an icon/logo which looks solid, professional, and artistic communicates that there is enthusiasm behind it. Take the Mozilla Firefox logo, as a noticeable example. Its elegant, artistic and simple.

As of today most professional looking icons/logos are based on simple curves and/or shapes to make them explicit and harmonious. They use few, but carefully chosen, colors. The Geany icon as of today fulfills the color requirement, but, the lacks elegance in it's shapes and lines. My suggestion as a substitute reuses the colors of the original icon, with some slight adjustments, but strips down the lamp into more basic shapes and lines.

3. To communicate the purpose of the application.

The Geany icon of today fulfills this purpose very poorly, but so does a lot of other icons as well. Look at some examples with, in my opinion, well designed logos: Google Chrome (a ball with colors?), NetBeans (a cube?), FileZilla (a stamp?). This role of the icon/logo is only relevant as long as the user has no knowledge of the application, which is why I put it as the third priority/role.

That's all for now. Any thoughts, ideas?