“Icons that are iconic”

Apple might have undone the macOS Tahoe menu icons decision, but this wasn’t the only contentious iconography issue in their ecosystem. On his blog, Jim Nielsen writes how Apple filed away so much expression by forcing rigid icon bureaucracy in macOS. Nielsen focuses mostly on distinctiveness; previously, you could make the icon unique by its general shape or the shape of its contents, but one of these two levers has now been taken away: This over-emphasis on “systems” design seems endemic to modern software. Systems prescribe rules because they are the easiest attributes to document, enforce, and automate — “All icons must use this shape, this lighting, this stroke.” Excellence, by contrast, is harder to systematize. It requires judgment, taste, care, experience, and a sensitivity to context — all in service of meaning and purpose, not superficial similarity. However, one also can’t help but notice how ugly and amateurish the Creator Studio icons are, so it all feels absolutely like…