New releases of Adobe software are expected in Spring of 2007. Recently, an Adobe blogger, John Nack, has put on display the icons for the new editions. There have been varied opinions on the icons – some love them, and some hate them.

Wheel of Icons
(Click for bigger)

My opinion? I don’t like them, but I don’t hate them either.

In previous editions, Adobe software have had very symbolic icons. Photoshop 6 had an eye icon, while 7 had a feather. Other packages have different symbols, but they were symbols, not letters. From the preview shown above, the new icons are no longer symbolic, but textual. Photoshop is now represented by Ps, Illustrator by Ai (Adobe Illustrator – that’s another problem with these icons: consistency). With all those letters in the icons, I’m reminded of the periodic table of elements! Especially since the picture above shows quite a lot of them. For my part, I think that an icon should be an actual icon, not text.

Some people like this, as it can be more intuitive then just symbols. But my view on this is that once you learn which icon is for which program, you know them, and don’t need to read them. Another thing I don’t like, and this has been discussed as well, is that icons for different programs are often distinguished by slightly different colours, which doesn’t seem very practical – and is useless for those that are colour-blind, for example. I feel that a unique symbol – be it a feather, a shell, or a flower – is much better than lettering.

As an aside of sorts, once you install the software, you can change the icons they use on the desktop – just download or make your own, and assign your preferred icon via the shortcut’s properties. So if you buy the software, you don’t have to put up with the icons if you don’t want to.

I was considering the possibility of upgrading my copy of Photoshop when CS3 comes out (I currently have v6), and I’ll admit the icon turns me off just a leeeettle bit. But, it’s a not a deal-breaker. Either I’ll be able to put up with it, or I’ll just use a custom icon.

Oh yeah, here’s a few other posts I have read on this subject…