[IAEP] Art criticism needed on Get IA Books icon (attached)

[Frederick Grose]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Jim Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am working on a new Activity that will connect to the Internet
> Archive and act as a sort of electronic card catalog.  It will be
> similar to the offline catalog browsing feature of Read Etexts, but
> will have much more information about the books, including language
> and a free form description.  It will be an online catalog, not
> offline.  It will be able to download books to the Journal in either
> PDF or DJVU format for use by the core Read Activity.
>
> Attached is a GIF version of my icon for this Activity.  The original
> is a .svg of course.  Artistically I think it is the finest icon I
> have ever done, but I have some doubts about it:
>
> 1).  Will the target audience (learners and younger teachers)
> recognize the object the icon is mean to resemble?  (Would they
> recognize the ones for Read Etexts or View Slides)?
>
> 2).  Is there a better image to convey what the Activity does?  And if
> so, could I con somebody into drawing it for me?
>
> If you feel you have the needed artistic talent all you need to make
> an SVG icon is the free Inkscape program, available for both Linux and
> Windows.  Create a New 48x48 icon.  Draw it with strokes and empty but
> enclosed areas that could be filled in.  No gradients or anything
> fancy.
>
> If you're looking for something to do in an hour drawing icons could
> be that activity.  Artistic skill and programming skill are seldom
> both found in the same person.  Of course there are exceptions.
>
> James Simmons
>
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep


Sorry to offer a negative review, but I struggled to understand the image at
the small size and perspective.
Perspective recognition can difficult for anything but the simplest object.
It took me a second look in another context to figure out what the final
object was.

The animation might be interesting the first few times, but may easily
become a distraction.  Icons are best when they are instantly recognized and
display a token of what's to come, not too much information.

The letters,  I A , conveyed that there was textual content, but the
initials would not match the name in other languages, and be another burden
to change.

Thank you for you contributing and braving your art!       --Fred
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