[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #23333: New icons

[WordPress Trac]

#23333: New icons
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 Reporter:  empireoflight   |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement     |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal          |   Milestone:  3.6
Component:  Administration  |     Version:
 Severity:  normal          |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  ui-focus        |
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Changes (by joen):

 * cc: joen (added)


Comment:

 I love the effort here, and I think the icons can definitely work (though
 I appreciate sharper vs. rounder edges), but not without a few small
 changes to the surrounding UI.

 A lot of the discussion here has emphasis on the "why" of changing the
 icons. This is a pragmatic approach, and we do need a good answer for that
 (because the current icons are also lovely).

 Mel Choyce did something wonderful in
 http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23333#comment:30 and
 http://f.cl.ly/items/3Q0e0y1E1X231K1s3i0M/wp-flatter.png (though I
 wouldn't go full Microsoft with the buttons) and I think it captures what
 simpler icons can bring to the admin UI: a lighter, faster, more
 functional feel.

 Having worked quite a bit with icon fonts recently, these icons seem
 almost made for being such. I think that combining a more streamlined
 admin UI with an icon font is a very good answer to the question "why".
 Because an icon-font would bring the following benefits to further
 development of the UI:

 - No image files to maintain for icons
 - Built-in retina
 - Icons can be shown in the pixel size they were designed to as well as 2x
 multiples thereof (for example the posts "pin" icon could be shown 1x in
 the sidebar, 2x at the top of the posts page)
 - Icon colors can be changed with one line of CSS
 - File size is through the floor.
 - Making changes to the HTML or CSS becomes much easier since the icons
 are essentially "letters". For example, the blue color scheme wouldn't
 require a separate PNG sprite.

 I see only two downsides to using icon fonts:

 - Slightly bigger overhead in creating the font (I volunteer to help out
 here if need be)
 - On Firefox, the -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; CSS property
 doesn't exist, which means Firefox and IE users will see a barely
 perceptible red and blue haze around the icons (more info here:
 http://noscope.com/2012/font-smoothing/)

 So I'm definitely in the camp of going flat and light-weight on the icons,
 provided they become part of a font. Trendy or not, in my experience, the
 strong silhuette and simplicity of flat icons can almost become a visual
 identity unto itself.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23333#comment:49>
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