The old icons work on almost any theme because they were colourful, bright, and had a black outline.
Because the new icons are flat, and have no outline, it’s much harder to adapt them for any theme, even if you were to colour them. Not to mention that to get them to work for a light theme you end up with horrible black abominations.
Whilst I tend to side against the “Keep Blender the way it is!” crowd, I think they have a case here. The old icons are crisper/clearer than the new ones and the fact I can “get used to them over time” is not going to fix that.
The icons need to be clear, clean, and easy to discern from one another more for people not knowing what to look for than those that do. Like the choice of left/right click for select, the issue isn’t those intimately familiar with the program but those that are not.
And don’t get me wrong - I think for monochromatic icons, the new ones are pretty damned good. I just think it’s hard to argue they are as effective as the old style (coloured with black outline).
I’m not sure what the outcry against the new monochrome design is about. They look great to me, and while they’re different, I can understand the logic of most of them and learn them just fine. I personally never really liked the old icons and just got used to them over time. If nothing else, the new icons feel fresh and clean, really gels well with the theme of 2.8 being this milestone step in Blender’s evolution. Really, hats off to meandering through all the subjectivity and successfully integrating your designs.
Definitely agree. I will say this though, All monochrome with no color does feel like a wasted opportunity, but I presume exactly what will be colored and how is still a debate in progress?
Road signs do not represent the monoicons referred to as a new fad in software development.
It’s the internet! Everyone hates everything, and they’ll go out of their way to let you know how much they hate it.
Personally, I think they look fine. Once I darkened the background on the radio button, and futzed around for a few minutes on a quick random shape model, I’m already used to them. They’re quite a bit like the Photoshop icons in style, and are about as readable to me. Once I got past that initial moment of OMG Everything’s DIFFERENT moment of confusion, I adjusted pretty quickly.
Though I should also add that I have Blender’s UI scaled to 1.1 on a 1440p monitor. I did test them out at 1.0, and they are a little harder to read at that smaller size. This is probably where the old icons had an advantage, since you can pick things out by their color fairly easily if you can’t quite make out their shape.
I’m having a hard time with them. Some I can get used to, but other’s are difficult. Blender is just so grey now. Everything is grey and less playful. Anyway, what about the modifier icons? Will those be back? The rows and rows of the wrench icon isn’t cool. The UX is much better with some playfulness in there. I’m using 2.8 now, but it feels like it’s dressed for a funeral, not a creative party.
That’s the trend with graphics programs these days. It’s all about being as color neutral as possible, with some stylish bits and bobs thrown about for tha flavah. If that’s the look Jendrzych is going for, I’d say he’s succeeded.
If you think these new icons make Blender funereal, just check out shots of Adobe Indesign. It’s all about those shades of grey. At least Blender still has some reds, blues, and greens in there.
I love the new icons, they are more icons rather than pictograms. They work better in a UI and at this small sizes we have for icons in Blender. On a side note my theme which is based on the 2.5 Default theme has become very Marmoset Toolbag with the new icons.
Good neutral color, and not visually cluttering nor does it have false color representation. Really nice!
@jendrzych the icons for the sub objects under add menu are looking great!
Is there a reason why the top menu objects are filled?
Personally it becomes a bit to visually blob-ish for me. Compared to the meta objects icons in the sub menu in my screenshot. That’s my personal thoughts.
Meanwhile when you mix the outline look with some parts filled it’s almost perfect. The filled parts anchors the icons and make them visually stand out from each others.
Like in this part of the UI, Properties panel. For example the Scene icon with the filled cone that resembles a mountain top. That same filled cone can be seen in the Layer icon. Nice!
So my only feed back is that, the same nice touch and finish on the objects icon under add menu would be really appealing.
Keep up the great work! it looks miles ahead of the old icons. And Blenders UI is getting more clear and easier to work with.
I can only speak for myself but after opening it up yesterday, I had a much more decluttered feeling looking at them in the new build today.
I concur that in a way they’ll grow on me. After looking at the same icons for almost 10 years there was bound to be distraction. With the changes and tweaks still being made to optimize the display of the new icon set, I am personally very optimistic.
Not trying to convert anyone here. Just saying, try to give it some time and reevaluate.
First of all, endrzych has done a really good work with the new icons, I really like them. But 
I like the new icons more, when they include some colors, just like you did here rawalanche. I think they work better this way. Based on this, I quickly threw together how the edit mode icons could look, when the icon has some orange, based on the 2.79 icons.
(current)
(my proposal)
(in 2.79)
I think this way the “Christmas tree” effect could be avoided, the new design would be still the base, but it would still include some colors. (ps: I also added all the edges for the cubes)
The main reason is the visual distinction between Objects and corelated ObData, with no use of colour - this is really helpfull in Outliner for instance. Using colour exagerrates the effect even more.
Regarding Scene, View Layers and Bitmap file icons - I am very happy that you have noticed such small details that aim to unify the language of symbolism of icons. There are more of such relishes.
BTW - would You mind, @aermartin, if I asked You to share Your theme?
I have repeatedly emphasized in this thread that icons of this type, which you have depicted in Your mock-up, functionally do not gain anything after adding colour, apart from the satisfaction of someone’s tastes. They are always in the same place, they do not change their location depending on the context and you do not have to look for them among other pictograms. It’s like a switch for lights in the car - switches are specially marked, but after some time you use them even without looking.
Blender’s GUI is systematized in such a way that the content is segregated and organized into small groups, which is the key to efficient content tracking. The interface is constantly improved and polished.
Completely different are lists with mixed content, varying depending on the context, depending on the project complexity and stuff. Colour can really help there. I mean the Outliner and File Browser.
Nice will keep looking for them. Can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with the Force fields icons.
And as I wrote the post, looking at the icons. Right after I realized what you basically explained. It’s to differentiate.
Example where mono icons work really well. The Radio, Toggle and Regular buttons read really well which settings are enabled or disabled. Any additional colored element into the icons would not really contribute anything. In my opinion. This is more readable and cleaner minimal looking.
Great work! Continue, and keep posting like earlier individual icons. I think feedback and ideas on how to boil down the icon to the core elements are good and productive.
An update on the modifiers set:
Perfect. If there is at least one color in a secondary element. Like this one. It feels much better and easy to visualize.
Same as we talked about weeks ago. Current common fullHD screens are far big enough to handle 2 pixel wider icons in an application like this. Even with your “reduced to 14px” icons that padding would help so much.
Validate the usability. In a measurable way. I think that’s the right way to maximize the success.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
In this case. two vertices being selected in the icon and two edges are really harder to understand than one… besides the “orange” color on the selection refers to the actual selection on viewport… if you preffer it with no color at all… I think that if at least we could have one vertice selected and one edge… it would be way more understandable…
