Judging by the number of folks listed who contributed to this (misguided) effort, I'd call this classic design by committee. Why not stick with the visual tropes we've come to know and instantly recognize? Instead of spending so much time designing these icons they should've read up on semiotics.
Say hello to Octicons
91–100 of 140 posts
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you tell me what other redesigns Github has done feel undesigned? I personally think Github has a pretty great design team.
Just off the top of my head, stacking row upon row of toolbars and metadata on top of every repository, so the first real file is actually 500px down the page. Also, excessive use of icons where text labels would be much clearer, as other commenters have said. There were several posts on HN over the last couple of years where people complained about these and other issues.
Also, excessive use of icons where text labels would be much clearer, as other commenters have said.
As a non-designer, I always use text labels in my applications because I can't make good graphics/icons, but it always seems like the applications lack polish because of it. I guess there is a happy medium to be found between no icons and the strict only-ambiguous-icons like Google switched to with Android 4 and their recent web property redesigns.
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#93Why isn't this SVG? Font icons are only applicable when there is actually an appropriate corresponding Unicode character for the icon, as text is supposed to be selectable/copyable, and display fine (albeit in a different typeface) if I turn off web fonts and have full Unicode coverage. Some of the icons that Github implements are in Unicode, yet they don't even use the characters for those. For an example of when it…
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#94Good idea, but, sorry, don't like 'em. Neither the execution nor the conceptualization. The execution is too detailed. Details, regardless of how pixel-perfect they are, do blur upon quick glance, and the more details there are, the more it looks like a gray blob. The execution is also inconsistent - why the book is 3D, but the rest is flat? Except for the coffee mug that is neither. The conceptualization is off too.…
I dunno. They look fine to me. The book will take a bit of getting used to (what icon would better represent a repository anyway?). The rest just sounds like nit-picking.
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#95I prefer no icons... https://gist.github.com/2648857
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#96I think this quote sums up some of the thinking behind this:
"Some would say that a repository is storage — a place where you store your code — somewhat like a box."
So why isn't the icon a box? Why instead spend the rest of the paragraph justifying the book icon? It might be understood well enough by the Github designers, but the metaphor isn't universal enough to be recognisable at a glance.
This is made worse because the icon for 'readme' and 'wiki' are also books. That could be confusing without the text.
The other example is the icons for watching. 'Add' tends to be represented as a plus icon. In this case 'watching' has a plus icon in it, while 'unwatch' has a cross icon. This doesn't appear to make sense.
One might wonder why, when there are present and available dichotomies (open eye, shut eye), there's such a mix and match of metaphors.
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#97With the new design I have issue reading the light gray text on the white background. It looks like the line weight is set too thin.. at least this is on Chrome & FF11 on Ubuntu 11.10
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#98What GitHub needs is a 'like' button, not new icons (so we don't have to `watch` projects we find interesting and want to somehow remember just in case - which results in thousands of commits and pushes (every hour) in our news feed we absolutely don't care about).
Agreed. A nice "bookmark" feature. I think a book would be a great affordance for bookmark but that seems to be taken already by "new repository"
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#99Good idea, but, sorry, don't like 'em. Neither the execution nor the conceptualization. The execution is too detailed. Details, regardless of how pixel-perfect they are, do blur upon quick glance, and the more details there are, the more it looks like a gray blob. The execution is also inconsistent - why the book is 3D, but the rest is flat? Except for the coffee mug that is neither. The conceptualization is off too.…
I don't like em either, but they're giving me free icons I can use for my website, so I'm all good!
Sorry, but I don't think they're giving you free icons to use for your website.
The article says Octicons are "a custom icon font for use on GitHub.com and GitHub products". In their companion Making Of post, they answer a question about licensing [1] by saying "The font is for GitHub use only." [2].
[1]: https://github.com/blog/1135-the-making-of-octicons#comment-...
[2]: https://github.com/blog/1135-the-making-of-octicons#comment-...
Re: Say hello to Octicons
#100We should tell them we don't like it instead of just commenting in a HN thread.
Tweet them, or something.
Bitbucket looks great still.