Contest to win a GOG copy of Iron Harvest

[Ross Scott]

6 hours ago, FullBusinessSuit said:

This looks like something stock windows already offers in terms of color.

 

Not at all, Microsoft has declared a war on gradients.  Everything is flat with no shading now, I hate it.  It's true this one is much more conservative compared to some others, but I see a lot I would want copy for a general OS theme.

 

As for your main pick, I found the readability relatively poor.  As for your runner ups, I actually liked your "Invasion" one quite a bit.  I love the idea of making the OS looking like it's a top down pixel art landscape, with ships used more occasionally.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Ross Scott (see edit history)

[centersolace]

14 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

i'm not into pixel art but i'll check out that stuff anyway

Nah, only FontGraphic does pixel art stuff. The rest don't. Sorry that wasn't clear.

12 hours ago, Ross Scott said:

Not at all, Microsoft has declared a war on gradients.  Everything is flat with no shading now, I hate it.  It's true this one is much more conservative compared to some others, but I see a lot I would want copy for a general OS theme.

 

As for your main pick, I found the readability relatively poor.  As for your runner ups, I actually liked your "Invasion" one quite a bit.  I love the idea of making the OS looking like it's a top down pixel art landscape, with ships used more occasionally.

 

Pretty much everyone has declared war on anything that's unique or interesting. It's all just flat grey or black blocks now. I fired up my old iMac from years back and was taken aback by now nice it looked compared to modern OS X. 

 

Like compare this:

 

 

VS this:

 

 

Yuck. And I even prefer dark modes. 

 

Sure, they're both minimalistic, and the layout is basically identical, but one just looks so much nicer than the other. The little reflections the icons have when they're sitting on that fake "table" looking thing gives it such a nice sense of physicality, which isn't usually taken into account with UI design.

 

Though Ross, I'm curious to see what you think of these designs by FontGraphic:

 

 

 

 

While they might be a bit too busy, (they're just animation showcases, not real interfaces for anything) I really like the pixel art take on a futuristic aircraft cockpit. Maybe not as a software design, but I'd like a videogame that uses a GUI design for this. I think that'd be cool.

[BTGBullseye]

15 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

i dunno, personally i don't think i could stand 95% of the skins posted here as far as daily usage goes, they would get tiresome real quick for me

if i had to see the same UI everyday, i would totally go for something simple, usable, and pleasant to see

That's why I liked the dark mode of Windows Vista Aero. Everything I could ever need was only 2-3 clicks away, but nicely hidden when I didn't need it. (it's sad that the non-Ultimate versions had irreparable bugs in them)

[RocketDude]

13 hours ago, Ross Scott said:

As for your runner ups, I actually liked your "Invasion" one quite a bit.  I love the idea of making the OS looking like it's a top down pixel art landscape, with ships used more occasionally.

 

Funny, the "Invasion" skin is based off of Raptor: Call of the Shadows, an old shmup published by Apogee. I'm curious if it'll ever be on Game Dungeon, since you did Tyrian.

 

In any case, that skin is a good way to repurpose game sprites, IMO.

[D-Puff]

This one's decent. Not super busy and the color is decent.

 

Razorfish_Skin.wsz

 

https://skins.webamp.org/skin/e2f73bfb2bab3fcc3b96edfc6e235cc5/Razorfish_Skin.wsz/

 

Can't tell if it uploaded the url through the insert function so posting it in the reply. Hope this doesn't disqualify me.

[Swamp]

Thanks for the copy!

[FullBusinessSuit]

On 9/13/2020 at 4:47 AM, Ross Scott said:

Not at all, Microsoft has declared a war on gradients.  Everything is flat with no shading now, I hate it.

 

I'm on W7, and I have gradients, and I never changed the stock skin https://pasteboard.co/JrhR5Ac.png Are you referring to W10 because I'm still resisting

 

On 9/13/2020 at 4:47 AM, Ross Scott said:

Everything is flat with no shading now, I hate it.

 

There is a very specific place this started: Google with "Material Design" debuting at Google IO 2014.

 

It completely failed at what "material design" means in computer science (which means "objects" on the screen are supposed to mimic real life objects) with respect to UI/UX development, and the only reason it persisted was because of a very large number of normies graduating from universities' CS departments whom only entered the field to get a job/be trendy, and it goes without saying these people were without direction, and so they simply copied what they thought the next trend would be; they went all-in on material design. I can still hear these people in my mind with their contrived happiness - no no - euphoria about material design now. Google also adopted the flat art style in pictures and logos to cheap out on graphics costs. I do like my essential productivity tools no-frills though.

 

I was trying to dig up a source for what google was saying when they first released it, where they were talking about the old CS design concept of mimicking real life objects, but I cannot find something like it, and everything I saw in my search results is saying material design always intended to look flat; and everything is just describing material design exactly as it is now - which was definitely not how it was pitched, as I recall the entire office I was working at talking about it. Oh well.

 

 

 

[FullBusinessSuit]

On 9/13/2020 at 5:12 PM, centersolace said:

I fired up my old iMac from years back and was taken aback by now nice it looked compared to modern OS X. 

My macbook pro 2011 still looks like this; I never update the OS if I can help it. They tricked me once into updating because my VPN program said it would work, but it didn't and they wanted me to update again or update to an OS that apple wouldn't allow on my macbook. I forget which. Anyways, I was also thinking about this interface when I mentioned that "stock look" to one of the chosen GUI skins.

 

I have a somewhat updated ipad & iphone though (I also have never updated it, unless forced), and the flat design just doesn't fit. They should just go back to the old way. Even my android phones have all the flat UI stuff with gestures. I don't like it - I prefer gingerbread and older (G)UIs myself.

 

On 9/13/2020 at 5:12 PM, centersolace said:

The little reflections the icons have when they're sitting on that fake "table" looking thing gives it such a nice sense of physicality

I always thought the reflection was a little much, even distracting. I was always wondering how much extra CPU/GPU overhead that was taking up, too, since I always had a bit of lag with that laptop. The "genie" minimizing animation made me think of that too, but I thought that was a nice effect; as opposed to the scaling effect. I liked having a quick way to have a chance at remembering right where the program was in the dock.

 

On physicality, this was the expressed purpose of "material design" when google launched it in 2014, but clearly they chose "let's make everything flat and eliminate long presses and other good idea in favor of gestures because objects move and now you can move list items" (gestures suck in comparison to some of the old ways, like long pressing to right click). But apple did get material design right *the very first time* with iOS. But that's all gone now, and it's worth avoiding apple

 

On 9/14/2020 at 2:23 AM, RaTcHeT302 said:

literally

https://files.catbox.moe/hdmdvk.png

 

Edited September 16, 2020 by FullBusinessSuit (see edit history)

[centersolace]

On 9/14/2020 at 2:51 AM, RaTcHeT302 said:

i tried to look these up but most of them didn't come up with anything on Google, and i checked google images and, i'm not sure what i'm supposed to be looking for, but if they are artists i don't really follow anybody in specific, i took a random screenshot of what i found on google images since i played wipeout and i liked the general style they had, but i don't actually know who the design republic is or, who made this stuff, i just looked up "wipeout graphics" or something like that xD

 

The Designers Republic is the company that did the graphic design and concept art for all the Wipeout games. The stuff you posted is part of what the designed.

 

Buro Destruct is a design agency similar to The Designers Republic.

 

Karim Rashid and Klaus Mai are graphic designers that were very influencial on the "Y2K Aesthetic" look, and contemporaries of the Buro Destruct and Designers Republic. 

 

Ippei Gyobu is a mech and character designer who worked on Jet Set Radio and other games of the era, but is most famous for his work on Gundam. 

 

FontGraphic is a graphic designer who specializes in, well, fonts.

 

So I guess you're also a Mechwarrior/Battletech fan in the making?

[centersolace]

16 minutes ago, FullBusinessSuit said:

My macbook pro 2011 still looks like this; I never update the OS if I can help it. They tricked me once into updating because my VPN program said it would work, but it didn't and they wanted me to update again or update to an OS that apple wouldn't allow on my macbook. I forget which. Anyways, I was also thinking about this interface when I mentioned that "stock look" to one of the chosen GUI skins.

 

I have a somewhat updated ipad & iphone though (I also have never updated it, unless forced), and the flat design just doesn't fit. They should just go back to the old way. Even my android phones have all the flat UI stuff with gestures. I don't like it - I prefer gingerbread and older (G)UIs myself.

 

I always thought the reflection was a little much, even distracting. I was always wondering how much extra CPU/GPU overhead that was taking up, too, since I always had a bit of lag with that laptop. The "genie" minimizing animation made me think of that too, but I thought that was a nice effect; as opposed to the scaling effect. I liked having a quick way to have a chance at remembering right where the program was in the dock.

 

On physicality, this was the expressed purpose of "material design" when google launched it in 2014, but clearly they chose "let's make everything flat and eliminate long presses and other good idea in favor of gestures because objects move and now you can move list items" (gestures suck in comparison to some of the old ways, like long pressing to right click). But apple did get material design right *the very first time* with iOS. But that's all gone now, and it's worth avoiding apple

 

Eh. Considering it's just a duplicated and mirrored icon not much probably, particularly since it was part of OS X from the beginning, and they only got rid of it a few years ago. I liked it because it was simple but not bland.

 

As for Material Design, I have mixed feelings about it. I don't think it's bad, but it's so bland, and it's lacking compared to it's competitors, plus it's a google product and that's never a good thing. Gesture based design is fine when it doesn't require precision. That's when things get ugly.

 

And yeah, I've hated Apple for many years now, and even Microsoft is making me consider Linux.

[FullBusinessSuit]

On 9/16/2020 at 3:55 AM, RaTcHeT302 said:

yes, literally - the contest is literally over, it's emphasis guys, i don't know how much more OVER could it be

 

i don't even understand the point of bringing that up, but whatever, people who do this just come off as really petty to me

 

i didn't say that i was LITERALLY DEAD, plus it's all about context

at least if you are gonna do that, at least try to point it out when i'm actually wrong, not when for once there's a valid use for it

 

plus, if you really want to put it that way, then we can only use that word in relation to literature, but again, it's context, the word "over" in this context, means, "to end", so it's THE END - i don't mean that the context is OVER somewhere or... this is stupid

 

what am i doing with my life

 

but hey if you really wanna get pendatict, fine, then let's go all the way through

 

here's the word bad, it means, bad, bad stuff, being bad is bad, don't be bad

 

ok what about, THE BAD BOYS, BEING A BAD ASS

see if i said, the GOOD BOYS, BEING A GOOD ASS, it wouldn't have the same impact, would it?

 

if you are gonna be a smart ass, at least do it properly

https://files.catbox.moe/s1gmy9.png