Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

cloud.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 42 posts

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#21

Post by nealmueller »

atarian wrote: post #18

The icons look way too similar. In fact, the only way to distinguish one from another is by the glyphs. This begs the question: what purpose does the blue hexagon serve besides aesthetics? As @bowmessage mentioned, couldn't you have a color for each family of service?

Good feedback–and rational. I'll ask the designer to consider removing the blue hexagon and making the icons glyphs. The design predates me. There might be an equally rational explanation for why it is the way it is, and it's worth asking.

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#22

Post by RandyRanderson »

alexgolive wrote: post #9

Are these icons public domain (or free to use in another way)?

From the readme.txt in the dl:

'The Products and Services logos may be used to accurately reference Google's technology and tools. Please see www.google.com/permissions for use of Google brand assets and trademarks.'

From that link:

'All of our brand features are protected by applicable trademark, copyright and other intellectual property laws. If you would like to use any of our brand features on your website, in an ad, in an article or book, or reproduce them anywhere else, or in any other medium, you'll need to receive permission from Google first.'

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#24

Post by saycheese »

halflings wrote: post #19
saycheese wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Google still do 20% projects? Thought that stopped years ago around the same time as Google X started up.

It's still in place and 20% projects are still advertised internally. I think Google might have made it a bit more formal (requiring manager approval etc.), that's all.

If it requires manager approval, that's not really 20% time in my opinion based on the founders statesments below; which is to say, an employee doing what they feel would most benefit a company has little to nothing to do with their managers opinion of what's best for the company.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin highlighted the idea in Google's 2004 IPO letter: "We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google," they wrote. "This empowers them to be more creative and innovative."

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#25

Post by RandyRanderson »

nealmueller wrote: post #2

This is one of my 20% projects at Google. AMA.

Nice work, Neil. It's not clear to me however which icons, if any, one can use and for what purpose.

See my comment below for what the readme.txt in the dl says.

Since Google holds the copyrights, by default, I wouldn't feel confident using anything here for anything other than personal, private use. Can you clarify?

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#26

Post by Rezo »

nealmueller wrote: post #21
atarian wrote: post #18

The icons look way too similar. In fact, the only way to distinguish one from another is by the glyphs. This begs the question: what purpose does the blue hexagon serve besides aesthetics? As @bowmessage mentioned, couldn't you have a color for each family of service?

Good feedback–and rational. I'll ask the designer to consider removing the blue hexagon and making the icons glyphs. The design predates me. There might be an equally rational explanation for why it is the way it is, and it's worth asking.

I think the hexagon is OK and immediately tells me this is a GCP diagram. It also helps in aligning things when drawing on a grid and creates a unified style.

I would however suggest to differentiate the services by color-coding the background: blue for Compute, red for Storage and DB, orange for Machine Learning etc. This will make it easier to take in the diagrams at a glance.

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#28

Post by nealmueller »

nealmueller wrote: post #21
atarian wrote: post #18

The icons look way too similar. In fact, the only way to distinguish one from another is by the glyphs. This begs the question: what purpose does the blue hexagon serve besides aesthetics? As @bowmessage mentioned, couldn't you have a color for each family of service?

Good feedback–and rational. I'll ask the designer to consider removing the blue hexagon and making the icons glyphs. The design predates me. There might be an equally rational explanation for why it is the way it is, and it's worth asking.

Here's what design told me, "In the diagrams context - the blue hexagon represents GCP product. The goal is to differentiate GCP from other products and services." My read on this is that blue hexagons makes sense in the context of a heterogenous architecture, but the blue hexagons do not provide value (as you note) if your diagram is all GCP.

Re: Google Cloud Platform Icon Library for Architecture Diagrams

#29

Post by eitally »

saycheese wrote: post #24
halflings wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still in place and 20% projects are still advertised internally. I think Google might have made it a bit more formal (requiring manager approval etc.), that's all.

If it requires manager approval, that's not really 20% time in my opinion based on the founders statesments below; which is to say, an employee doing what they feel would most benefit a company has little to nothing to do with their managers opinion of what's best for the company. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin highlighted the idea in Google's 2004 IPO letter: "We encourage our employees, in addition to their re…

It doesn't (most of the time) require manager approval.
Post reply on HN