"Blue Ocean" Full-Colour icons refresh

[Ken Vermette]

Alllrrrriiiighty. That was more than a day or two, but I've also
included a bit more stuff in the proposal. It can be found over at...

https://phabricator.kde.org/T14968

On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 7:28 PM Ken Vermette <vermette at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Howdy Andreas! (And thank you)
>
> Noooononono! Don't stop the train over my proposition. :)
>
> I'll get the preliminary samples and a few different variants of the
> refresh up onto a new Phabricator task tomorrow evening-ish. Maybe
> morning after. Feedback and tweaks are a certainty, and there's always
> the possibility that the ideas/direction of a refresh may be rejected,
> so let's not put existing work on hold over unapproved/unknown work.
> Ideally I'd like any work on Breeze icons to continue as-is until
> there's a level of certainty that a larger refresh is going to be
> accepted, and even then, things outside whatever phase of the refresh
> we're in should absolutely remain active; we still need working
> up-to-date icons for each release, and it's better to have icons in
> their most accurate "state" for reference. I mean we're well north of
> 700 icons being targeted by this initiative - before we commit let's
> play it safe!
>
> Merci beaucoup! ~
>  - Ken
>
> On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 6:54 PM kainz.a <kainz.a at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > That's great Ken, I love your work.
> >
> > However I already work on a MR to use the highlight color for the places icon see
> > https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/breeze-icons/-/merge_requests/141
> >
> > Let me know if I should finalize the MR or you will jump in.
> >
> > 5 Years after my last icon work for breeze I come back
> > and 2 weeks later the awesome Ken. That's fantastic.
> >
> > cheers
> > Andreas_K
> >
> > Am Mo., 18. Okt. 2021 um 21:30 Uhr schrieb Noah Davis <noahadvs at gmail.com>:
> >>
> >> Hi Ken, this sounds like a really cool idea and I'd be interested in
> >> seeing what you have in mind.
> >>
> >> On Mon, Oct 18, 2021 at 12:50 PM Ken Vermette <vermette at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Also relevant: [Breeze] [Bug 443288] New: Custom folder icons
> >> >
> >> > Hey all;
> >> >
> >> > There's been quite a bit of interest in having colour scheme
> >> > responsive full-colour icons, especially with the accent-colour being
> >> > much more accessible. In addition the Breeze "Blue Ocean" refresh has
> >> > been coming along very nicely (congratulations to everyone behind it!)
> >> >
> >> > I would like to gauge any interest in allowing me to do a larger
> >> > refresh on the full-colour icons in Breeze. This would include
> >> > "modernization" to the current trends, adjustments to the style spec,
> >> > writing up new documentation to assist future artists, and considerate
> >> > future-proofing for the several hundred unique full-colour icon files.
> >> > This sort of thing would probably be done over the span of 2-3 release
> >> > cycles in phases without assistance. I can commit to doing the
> >> > iconography required, documentation, and visual guides. Monochrome
> >> > icons would be untouched by this project.
> >> >
> >> > If this were done, I'd imagine the rollout looking something like...
> >> >
> >> > Phase 1: Mimetypes, Places (5.24)
> >> > Phase 2: Preferences, Categories, Devices (5.24/5.25)
> >> > Phase 3: Application Icons (5.25/5.26)
> >> > Phase 4: Possible second-pass for colour-science (explained below) (5.26/5.27)
> >> >
> >> > Since Breeze has been well thought-out and users are accustomed to it
> >> > this would be a refresh - not a total redesign. An icon designed to
> >> > look like a CD jacket will still look like a CD jacket, but with the
> >> > following adjustments and "modernization":
> >> >  - Responsive colours added where appropriate / not obnoxious (e.g.
> >> > folders, various prefs icons, etc), an overall move to class-driven
> >> > colouring.
> >> >  - Removal of the 45-degree shadows, moving to softer top-down
> >> > lighting, more "logical" lighting.
> >> >  - Rounding and smoothing of the general design, as appropriate.
> >> >  - A secondary style tag named "extended-color-scheme" (explained below)
> >> >  - Retain the "mostly flat" design, but allowing depth where appropriate.
> >> >  - Overall a less "angular" and more "comfortable" design language.
> >> >  - Roughly the same amount of detail, give-or-take.
> >> >
> >> > I have several sample icons illustrating...
> >> >  - Emblems in mimetypes and places following the text colour, with
> >> > appropriate soft glows/shadows.
> >> >  - Folders following the accent scheme.
> >> >  - Icons which can very slightly adjust some individual dark/light
> >> > levels to either provide contrast or subtlety for optimal visual
> >> > clarity in light/dark/moderate schemes.
> >> >  - The "extended-color-scheme" style tag (explanation below)
> >> >  - A new "ColorScheme-Toggle" class (currently does nothing, explanation below)
> >> >
> >> > The accent colours are things that will get the community excited, but
> >> > in terms of usability and comfort any new icons should subtly re-shade
> >> > themselves to visually stand out just enough from the background to be
> >> > usable but not overwhelming. We have many icons that might feel "too
> >> > bright" or "too dark" under certain conditions. A major goal is to
> >> > ensure all icons are a pleasing luminosity without "sinking in" or
> >> > "popping out" of the system colour scheme.
> >> >
> >> > "extended-color-scheme" is a style tag with a set of CSS classes
> >> > containing the 10 major colours in light/med/dark, and 3 shades.
> >> > Unlike the current-color-scheme style tag where every colour can
> >> > completely change, extended-color-scheme is more rigid (red is always
> >> > red, dark is always darkest). With this extended scheme we can much
> >> > more easily produce "vibrant" and "de-saturated" variants of the icon
> >> > scheme.  I'm midway finished producing a compile-time script for
> >> > optimization and colour modulation, so while Plasma itself might not
> >> > support this potential feature, it can be used to easily maintain both
> >> > "desaturated" and "high contrast/accessibility" icon variants ~ Phase
> >> > 2. In the future a pioneering developer may play with this "extended"
> >> > colour support as we currently do with system colours. If users wanted
> >> > a colour saturation slider or match the colours to their wallpaper
> >> > this gives us that future avenue.
> >> >
> >> > Lastly, I'd also be adding the CSS class "ColorScheme-Toggle" to
> >> > select elements. Not everyone prefers the accent colour to dominate
> >> > their icons, so this class would provide a mechanism for icon authors
> >> > to allow disabling select colourizing in a flexible manner. The
> >> > primary example of this is folder icons where users may not want the
> >> > folders to follow their highlight colours. The mechanism to make this
> >> > work is to keep a copy of the current-color-scheme element during its
> >> > replacement, then doing a "dumb" text replacement of ".ColorScheme" to
> >> > ".ColorScheme-Toggle .ColorScheme" of its contents. In the Icons panel
> >> > we'd provide a checkbox labeled "Use accents from color scheme" to
> >> > manage this new behavior.
> >> >
> >> > If this is done and support for extended-color-scheme and the toggle
> >> > rolls out, it will directly benefit community iconographers targeting
> >> > KDE Plasma, as they would no longer need to maintain several
> >> > variations of their sets in the future. While it theoretically means
> >> > more work on a per-icon bases, it dramatically decreases the number of
> >> > icons required and puts the focus of different icon packs to shape and
> >> > style. In my own work on this I'll be producing complimentary scripts
> >> > which will further assist the community in optimizing and deploying
> >> > these slightly more dynamic icons.
> >> >
> >> > If a larger refresh is not needed I don't wish to push a larger design
> >> > effort onto the community, especially since it changes some of the
> >> > foundational style aspects of the icon theme, but this is work that
> >> > I'm able and willing to do. Between the strides of Plasma getting a
> >> > cleaner look/feel and competitors upping their aesthetic game, I think
> >> > this is a decent opportunity to keep pace in the graphical segment
> >> > while refreshing the iconography a bit. This requires effort in the
> >> > high-hundreds to low-thousands of icons, it would likely spawn several
> >> > phab tasks, so please let me know if you'd like me to begin this
> >> > initiative before I start making tasks which might pollute
> >> > Phabricator.
> >> >
> >> > Thank you.
> >> >  - Ken