GUI Championships - Most Usable Icon winners

GUI Championships - Most Usable Icon winners

Brad Wardell on 26 October 2006 - 16:38 · 24 comments & 16369 views

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The GUI Championships, a multi-website contest in which graphics designers from around the world compete to design various elements found in modern GUIs has had its first major event's winners announced.

The event, most usable icons, was based on icons that were both good looking but also very useful in a day to day environment.

The finalists were judged by Neowin's own Neobond (Steve Parker) as well as representatives from Betanews, deviantART, WinCustomize, and Microangelo. Over the next few weeks, more events will be judged. The winners win things from Xbox 360s to eVGA video cards running the nVidia 7x00 series to even an Alienware Area-51 laptop (yes, the mega laptop).

Below are the winners for the most usable icon package event:

View: Winner: Slicer

View: Second: Faraway Dream

View: Third: Aqualix

View: GUI Championships homepage

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Post a comment · Send to friend Comments · There are 24 additional comments

#1 N_B on 26 Oct 2006 - 17:26

Congrats to the winners!

#2 SniperX on 26 Oct 2006 - 17:47

Certainly a worthy winner. It's nice to see usable icons for a change, as opposed to those which are often based on other works, but prove to be highly impractical for everyday use.

(3 replies) #3 phun8890 on 26 Oct 2006 - 19:45

All those icons look stunning. I like Faraway Dream icons better than Slicer as it graphically better and look way out of this world. Anyway, congrats to all of them.

#3.1 Lare2 on 26 Oct 2006 - 19:49

I agree, Faraway Dream icons looks more complex to do, than the Slicer ones. But the Slicer have a more slick look.

#3.2 sanctified on 26 Oct 2006 - 20:02

Its not about complexity but about usability. In that department, as a desginer I must say that minimalism is often more usable than complexity.

Last edited by sanctified on 26 Oct 2006 - 22:19

#3.3 Minchino on 26 Oct 2006 - 20:37

The Faraway Dream icons look a little too complex in my opinion, your not gonna have all your file types shown at 128x128 on your Object Dock or what ever it is, at 32x32 or 16x16 some of them are gonna get too cluttered.

Last edited by Minchino on 26 Oct 2006 - 21:33

#4 cpu on 26 Oct 2006 - 20:07

Slicer is so simple. And, the same time, so beautiful...

#5 edwinmcdunlap on 26 Oct 2006 - 20:39

I'm actually using Slicer right now. It's really nice

#6 backdrifter on 26 Oct 2006 - 20:45

slicer is excellent design-wise. clean and simple. I personally found faraway dream a bit too busy but it's obviously hard-worked. I have mixed feelings about aqualix, some icons quite well made, some of them are.. well let's just say so from 90's. (especially the "Run" and "Help and Support" ones). And file icons are not visually descriptive enough.

#7 lothodon on 26 Oct 2006 - 22:01

site getting hammered? keeps timing out for me.

#8 ArtOf_War on 26 Oct 2006 - 22:01

Hmmm... the site seems to be experiencing some downtime

#9 Hooya on 26 Oct 2006 - 22:46

I'm getting immediate Page cannot be displayed errors.

#10 Tz on 26 Oct 2006 - 22:48

They just need to make a shell patcher for Slicer now...

#11 neufuse on 26 Oct 2006 - 23:06

is it just me or is the links not working?

(1 reply) #12 Chugworth on 26 Oct 2006 - 23:33

Windows Default for me, thank you very much.

#12.1 mujjuman on 27 Oct 2006 - 03:41

Quote - Chugworth said @ #12

Windows Default for me, thank you very much.

x2

although i would consider using the Slicer one and the Aqualix one... all three are good, but those two i mentioned are the ones for me

great job, all of you

#13 mayamaniac on 26 Oct 2006 - 23:33

Aqualix is most complete set to me and therefore most usable. Faraway is too busy looking. Slicer is nice but seems the artist got lazy at the end with the movie icons, where they all look alike except for the three letter extensions, which is inconsistent to the Picture icons, where they all look different.

#14 Maysky on 27 Oct 2006 - 00:44

I like the Slicer, simple, clean and very usable; very "Applish" in many ways.

---

#15 m.keeley on 27 Oct 2006 - 04:01

Of the 3 I'd have gone for Aqualix, there are a couple of slightly dodgy ones in there but definately look the best of the 3 IMO. Think Slicer is too flat looking, slightly inconsistent when it comes to "shine", for example some folders are shiney others aren't, and some, like printer, are just too basic.

Perhaps I'll have a go next year!

(1 reply) #16 j0j081 on 27 Oct 2006 - 11:30

I think I could make better Icons in mspaint.

#16.1 Treefrog on 27 Oct 2006 - 20:04

So do it and you'll be famous.

Yeah, I can hear your excuses already.. but I can assure you the green eyed monster already told me the whole story.

#17 HawkMan on 27 Oct 2006 - 12:01

I really like the Faraway dreams ones, but I'm a sucker for detailed icons anyway

though sicne I run vista now it's not really practical as I doubt these woudl work very well with the new folder icons and stuff.

#18 mr_da3m0n on 27 Oct 2006 - 12:17

The first one is original, but not my style. The second one is perfect Stardock style, gizmos, SCI-FI, and visually saturated. I find these way too encumbering.

The third one is actually pretty. I think that one should have won.

#19 guylaroche on 27 Oct 2006 - 17:37

Slice = cool!

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GUI Championships - Most Usable Icon winners

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