Turbomilk

Mini reviews for DesignCollector

Author: Dmitri Joukov
29 May 2006

Quite recently, Turbomilk (represented by me, with assistance from Yegor) led a week workshop of interface design for DesignCollector. We thought about this for a little while and decided, why not posting all those mini reviews in our own blog? These hyperlinks are a must-know for anyone, who is into interface design.

We’ll start with the world-famous icon builders, and then move on to interface design tutorials. I do not even have a grain of doubt that the links to the following sites will find their place in your Bookmarks/Favorites, next to the link to Turbomilk.

The Iconfactory
The best quality free icons and a large database of graphics for your desktop created by the top-notch eminent pictogram designers. Most of you see their work every day: you see the icons in Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac.

Firewheel Design
This is a web site with the Web 2.0 spirit, with a blog on the front page and “under construction” signs on all the rest. If you try and look more carefully, you will find a very notable portfolio, which consists primarily of icons.

Everaldo Coelho
Brazil spells not only the apes and the Amazon. Brazil also spells Everaldo, a simple Brazilian guy and an icon builder with a worldwide reputation. He is famous for his Crystal theme for KDE/Linux. He also supervises a free icon project on YellowIcon.com.

Jasper Hauser
asper lives in Holland. He probably smokes little but draws a lot and does it good. He is famous for his icons for different software for MacOS, does his job clean and neat, and is just a honey.

Rokey
It is not surprising that there is an icon designed among a billion of Chinese. Very high-grade works, a whole bunch of different smiles, some of them are very widely known. The most attentive visitors will find some lessons on Adobe Illustrator in Chinese and in English.

Graphical User Interface Gallery
This is not just a gallery: this is a huge database on interface history. The authors keep track of every stage of development of interfaces, icons and even splash screens of different applications. This wonder keeps getting appended with new exhibits (constantly yet not fast). Marvel.

Windows XP Visual Guidelines
What is the Microsoft’s opinion on how Windows XP applications should look and behave? The official guidelines will tell you in detail.

Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines
Windows XP goes down in history and Windows Vista is arriving. How should application interfaces be built for a new generation system from Microsoft? We can’t know all the secrets, but bits and pieces are available in the pilot version of the guidelines.

Apple Human Interface Guidelines
Every Mac OS application developer must know these guidelines like the back of his hand. It is also worth looking through for everyone else. Just for common development.

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines
The official guidelines on interface visual design from Microsoft and Apple are known to everyone, who deals with interface design. The guidelines from Sun are less famous. They regulate the outlook of cross-platform Java-based applications. Even if the Java world is far removed from you, these guidelines are worth reading; they give a deepest insight into all aspects of interface design.

TangoProject
It is long known that Linuxoids will rule the world one day. Tango Project is one more proof to that. The designers and their fellow travelers got together to make free icons for Linux-based application developers. Which they did, and did it adultly: they developed a unique style, wrote guidelines on it and created a catalogue of necessary icons.

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