The beautifully detailed art of Mac OS X app icons
Over at his blog Cult of Mac, writer Leander Kahney published a post this morning featuring full-size 512 x 512 pixel screenshots of Mac icons. As he notes, the highly detailed icons are part of a move to make the OS resolution independent, but they're also an indication of Apple's attention to detail.Many of the icons are works of art when viewed at their full size. The TextEdit icon, for example, is actually a note from "John Appleseed" to "Kate" featuring the text of the "Here's to the crazy ones" ads of the late 1990s. The Jar Launcher app, featuring a cup of hot Java sitting on a paper napkin, reveals miniscule bubbles on the side of the coffee, as well as real Java code written on the napkin.
All of these icons are indications of the fanatical attention to detail of Apple designers. After looking at Kahney's gallery of art, I gathered my own collection of icon goodness from both Apple and third-party apps. Click the gallery icon below to see what I found. If you have found any 512 x 512 icons that are incredibly good, send 'em to us at http://tuaw.tumblr.com/submit.
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Over at his blog Cult of Mac, writer Leander Kahney published a post this morning featuring full-size 512 x 512 pixel screenshots of Mac...
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Nice looks and details, indeed. However, it's sometimes hollow style: What would the driver of the Transmit truck see in it's rear view mirror? Just the wall behind him/her. How about a couple of external mirrors? Some graphics designer is rich enough never to drive a car himself...lucky one ;)
October 27 2009 at 12:54 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhy couldn't these icons be put in gallery as PNG images?
September 07 2009 at 11:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replywell I tried to upload my favorites after taking the time to screen shot and rename all of them...but the link above keeps killing safari on me...it will upload the pic and then crash the whole browser...sucks
so here is my list from my apps folder
AirRadar
AIRFOIL
AIRFOIL SPEAKERS
AllSecure
Anxiety
Audio Hijack Pro
AUTOMATOR
BannerZest Pro
BLITZ
Chuzzle
EyeTV
Final Cut Express
Fission
Font Book
FontCase
FotoMagico
Garage Sale
HYPERSPACES
iShowU HD
iStopMotion
MACDUST
MacSpeech Dictate
Mail
OverFlow
Paperless
Process
RapidWeaver
RapidoSerial
Remote Buddy
ResizeMe
Skitch
SnapProX
Stuf
The Print Shop 2
The Unarchiver
and Xslimmer
nice list I have some are more amazing than others but all have great detail and great workmanship in them...love this article and hope more like this that show off the great little things in OSX come in the future
Surprised no one mentioned Disk Utility. The label on the HDD is actually set up to advise you to handle carefully to avoid hazards, and that you should be appropriately grounded!
The iTunes icon says: "APPLE 2006 - ITUNES 7 - 20806" And that's with the latest iTunes too! Kinda funny they haven't changed that.
September 06 2009 at 12:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe Unarchiver icon quite nice zoom in and the shipping label says "Ship to: The Unarchiver OS X.app - Data Inside Don't Break"
September 06 2009 at 11:02 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyNice icons but how do I stop the icons on Downloads and Applications defaulting to the first document/Application in the folder?
September 06 2009 at 10:02 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHeard around the tuaw table...."Whatta you got?" "I got nuttin'" "Me neither" "ok run the Cult of Mac story, well it's not really a story but has lots of blown up icon pics for filler"
September 06 2009 at 9:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replythe angle of that front tire of the truck in Transmit is off. Anyone?
September 06 2009 at 8:45 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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