e18 – Icon Mania!

This episode we cover 30 years of icon design, from black and white pixel art all the way to today's gorgeous, full-screen, retina eye candy. Along the way we encounter some FatBits, creatures that go "Moof!", and deep levels of icon-ception.

Links for this episode:

Followup

• new iTunes icon!

Icon history

• Susan Kare
• MacPaint toolbox
• System 1 control panel
• FatBits
• "Pixel perfect: The golden age of icons was 32x32"
• Ed's Copland folder variations [download]
• clip2icns
• "Hard Drive Icons Through the Ages"
• Aqua icons

Iconic icons

• "Picasso" Macintosh logo (actually Matisse!)
• Clarus the Dogcow
• Steve Jobs portrait
• Yosemite app icon design guidelines

The icon design community

• The Iconfactory
  • history of the factory
  • Pixelpalooza contest
  • Twitterrific app
• Brian Brasher (Etherbrian and Etherknot)
• John Marstall (The Iconmaster and Perfect Yosemite)
• Alamofire collaboration
  • Packrat
  • Gowalla
• Layne Karkruff (Blue Sky Heart Design)
  • Blue Sky Icon archive
  • Ed's BSI-esque control panel icon [download]
• Pixelgirl Presents
• Icontown

Our icons

• Ed: FoxTrot icon set [download]
  • Cris Phin's tweet on tiling icons/images
• Brian: 1024 Pixels contest
  • contest entries from 2000 [download]

And finally…

• Apple Icon Garden
  • the story of the garden's removal
  • Iconfactory's icon set of the Icon Garden