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In Brief: Iconography 2.0

New York Times iPhone Icons

With today's release of its 2.0 software, iPhone users are about to be clobbered by a new generation of bubbly and glossy graphics for the hundreds of applications by third party developers that are now immediately available for download and ready to, um, be stroked by your fingers. Among those many applications is a news reader for The New York Times with some lovely iconography work by Felix Sockwell. True, this is not specifically logo-related, but in terms of brand extension, this is a great demonstration of a traditional organization adapting rather swiftly to the, literally, latest technology. And iconography shares a lot of the reductive qualities necessary to tell the biggest story with the smallest amount of visual elements. The icons look really great on the iPhone and Felix's process (link above) is pretty cool to see.
By Armin on Jul.11.2008 in In Brief Link Comments [12]

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Jerry Kuyper’s comment is:

Felix,

Sweet, no random colors or mysterious rotating shapes.

I'm upgrading so I can use your icons!

On Jul.11.2008 at 10:08 PM

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Joe Szczepaniak’s comment is:

On first glance these icons appear to be a bit over-simplified. However, once I had some time to analyze them and see their progression I was amazed at how perfect they really are. I've collected desktop icons for many years now, and I'm always payign attention to the overall L&F of a set of icons, and Felix really managed to make something unique here, as well. I think that's also an important aspect of an icon set. I wonder if we will see the NY Times roll these out on anything other than the iPhone GUI. They would do well to utilize them as much as possible on their website so that iPhone users will be used to using the site when they are on their desktop machines/laptops. Very successful. Thanks for posting, Armin.

On Jul.11.2008 at 10:22 PM

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felix sockwell’s comment is:

thx fellas (and thx for posting arm)

i havent really had to t ime to do a proper posting on this yet (jeez, can it get any nerdier? really?) but there is whole lot I'm not showing on that drawger post. GUI is very similar to font design... in that things take huge turns at important intervals. Khoi and Caryn were very smart to reccognize that the caduceus wasn't as good (fast) as the first aid sign. to that point we had drawn a killer caduceus to go with the "Arts" section but in the grand scheme you have to shoot for the fastest & broadest of communication. I really fought the idea of balls for sports (opting for whistle or ref's jersey or foam finger) but i was wrong again... cooler, rounder nads prevailed.

On Jul.11.2008 at 10:50 PM

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Jeff’s comment is:

Loves et. I wanna press and press. Now someone buy me an iPhone ...

On Jul.12.2008 at 02:49 AM

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Ray Dang’s comment is:

Yeah, I noticed these icons right away, they're beautiful. One gripe: the "N.Y./Region" icon is the silhouette of NY state, sans Long Island… and also the icon for "The City" section is the same NY state icon. It should really be Manhattan or the 5 boroughs.

Not to do with the icons, but, while I really want to like this app I see little to no improvement over using the mobile site. In fact it is quite slooow. This app is even missing some features that the mobile site has such as video.

On Jul.12.2008 at 03:08 AM

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debbie millman’s comment is:

Felix--this is absolutely wonderful. Congratulations!

On Jul.12.2008 at 11:56 AM

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felix sockwell’s comment is:

good catch Dang... that icon is wrong for some reason (i designed "the city" as a city (those buildings in drawger post) and it was approved as far as i knew)

not even Steve Jobs could control the iPocalypse that was yesterday's midtown meltdown. i blame the icons.

On Jul.12.2008 at 12:58 PM

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Christian Palino’s comment is:

Beautiful Felix. I don't own a cell phone, so I'll look for some way to get them on a screen with my NYtimes content... Those obits ideas were stellar.

On Jul.12.2008 at 03:30 PM

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Von Glitschka’s comment is:

Excellent work Felix! Spot on.

On Jul.13.2008 at 11:18 AM

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Nathan Derksen’s comment is:

I just got an iPhone and the NYT app was one of the first apps I saw. Nicely done. I've wrestled with icon design before, and it's no easy task.

On Jul.14.2008 at 01:42 AM

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Nick’s comment is:

"your so money you dont even know it"

On Jul.14.2008 at 12:59 PM

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Darrin Crescenzi’s comment is:

Ha ha ha, nice Nick. Now I know what I'm watching tonight…

On Jul.14.2008 at 04:31 PM

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