Two readers asked me about Jessica Hische’s fancy custom doc icons that they spotted in an earlier post today. She created them herself, you can download them here and watch the video below explaining how to change your dock icons.
How to Change your Dock Icons from Jessica Hische on Vimeo.
Jessica is one talented lady. We miss her here in studiomates land.
Please note: When sh says “left click” in the video she really mean “right click”.)
Very nice indeed! I wish the computers where I’m at weren’t all locked up, otherwise I’d be all over these.
Nov 16th, 2010 / 9:35 am
The trouble with these icons is that it doesn’t allow us to differentiate by shape. Our brands look at shape first, then colour, then symbol, and final text. So when we go for Photoshop, we’re looking for the square that is blue and happens to say Ps. When we go for Skype, we’re looking for an odd lemon shape that is turquoise, and happens to say S. And so on.
Changing all the icons to the same shape may be tidy, but ultimately it slows us down because we have to pause to examine the icons and create the associations. In other words, I’ll keep my chaos for now, it’s faster that way.
Nov 16th, 2010 / 9:47 am
The trouble with these icons is that it doesn’t allow us to differentiate by shape. Our brands look at shape first, then colour, then symbol, and finally text. So when we go for Photoshop, we’re looking for the square that is blue and happens to say Ps. When we go for Skype, we’re looking for an odd lemon shape that is turquoise, and happens to say S. And so on.
Changing all the icons to the same shape may be tidy, but ultimately it slows us down because we have to pause to examine the icons and create the associations. In other words, I’ll keep my chaos for now, it’s faster that way.
Nov 16th, 2010 / 9:47 am
I downloaded these gems a couple months ago and since then, my dock has made each day a little more lovely. Thanks Jessica!
Nov 16th, 2010 / 9:52 am
i love these and will definiely have to download them, thanks for sharing!
Nov 16th, 2010 / 10:42 am
Excellent find!
Though, I beg you to change this typo:
“fancy custom coc icons”
-coc
:)
Nov 16th, 2010 / 12:21 pm
A very nice and tidy idea, but not practical at all.
Nov 16th, 2010 / 1:33 pm
Thanks so much for this lead! I was so disappointed in the newest iTunes dock icon design. Now I can replace it!
Nov 16th, 2010 / 1:42 pm
I’m curious as to the hesitance to use custom icons. I agree that they override the quick scanibility and differentiation we depend on for quick icon recognition, but I think the idea here is that we use these to customize our own interfaces which we should be quite familiar with.
Honestly, with my dock, I depend a lot more on positioning than icon design. So I know my Adobe apps are so-far in from the right side, my browsers and development apps are so-far in from the left, and so on. I don’t think the icon replacement would override that. It’s valid to worry about affecting the user behavior, but if the only user is me, then I dictate my own behavior.
I’m all for the idea of customizing my GUI to reflect my own aesthetic.
Nov 16th, 2010 / 2:51 pm
That was a lovely trick to show us your face in Photobooth during the video. The disembodied voice becomes… embodied.
Nov 17th, 2010 / 8:44 am
I’m currently expanding this set to fit all the icons in my dock but I cant seem to find a perfect match for the font. Any chance you could give me name?
Apr 1st, 2011 / 12:56 am
I can’t get it to work the way she described (the first method, in MacOS 10.6). I trying to change the icon of a folder, but I wouldn’t think that would matter. Hmmm.
May 16th, 2011 / 5:29 pm
To the Debbie Downers above: let us play! The urge to customize runs in designers’ and creatives’ blood. Sure, it’s not practical, but that’s besides the point. :)
Dec 20th, 2011 / 12:10 am