If I have to choose one, it’s FontBook. Easily the worst icon because it’s so stale looking and aperture width is too strong.
They need to add some colors to difference it from Utilities Apps and reduce the aperture width. The type blocks need to go because it has nothing to relate with the notebook. Some contrast would help it to stand out more in the Dock.
The only thing I like about it is gradients. It’s nicely done.
What’s your most dislike Apple-designed icon?
Those aren’t key caps, they’re type blocks. Looked at in that context they make sense.
You’re right they’re type blocks, not key caps. Thanks for the head up.
GarageBand has a pretty bad icon. I always have to change it to someone more fitting.
The guitar doesnt make use of the 128 x 128 space very well and the shadow is ugly.
I believe Dave Brasgalla over at the IconFactory had a really nice GarageBand icon up for a while on the Quick Pix corner of the site, but it changes every few weeks and is gone now. I’m sure someone must have gotten it…
In no particular order:
1.) QuickTime (B-O-R-I-N-G)
2.) iChat
3.) iSync
4.) Terminal
I think FontBook should have a boring monochromatic icon — it is, afterall, a utility.
iSync is the one I hate the most. iChat + Terminal are cool, gorickey.
mail – i dislike the eagle. the rest is great. i made some replacements
preview – that kid looks possessed. it’s his eyes that freak me out. that icon too, the rest is great.
Preview icon is pretty lame. I think at “dock scale” (which is usually 24×24 to 48×48 on my machine) it is too similar to Mail icon – similarly angled blue with white border. When I first switched to OSX I was constantly clicking the wrong one. I assume the kid in the photo is a relative of a programmer or something. Apple must be fairly pleased with Preview icon since they use it extensively as an example of good iconography in the OSX Human Interface Guidelines. Is it just me or does that kid have devil-eyes?
DVD Player.app
oh
my
god
image capture.app is worse, tho.
Internet Connect’s a bit lame… I understand the reasoning behind it: Apple’s network icon with a phone jack in it (and quite frankly, it’s so much better than that piss-poor phone icon they used in Jaguar). Still, it just doesn’t feel right.
I’ll ditto the Quicktime Player comment though — Gracious, that icon needs a makeover badly… it looks sooo old.
Mail. It’s just plain ugly.
A second for DVD Player. In my opinion, its just plain ugly, even compared to the fontbook. Calculator would probably take second place.
maybe the “ODBC Administrator”
I agree about Quicktime and DVD Player icon. They’re just “meh”.
I used Quicktime Icon from the one in Jaguar. It is more acceptable than plain Q logo icon. You can download them from RAILhead Design. It’s in a set called Jaguar Icons.
Xgrid, although I’m not sure if that counts or not.
QuickTime Player.
I think any of the developer icons are bad, really bad, XCode is the onlu good one.
I agree that XCode’s icons are awesome. After all, that’s what inspired MacThemes.net’s blueprint design :)
So Adam, are you going to take care of some ugly icons for us?
;)
Pixie. awesome app, horribly bad icon.
The Pixie icon could be improved, but then again the icon is what the app does.
I’m going to put in another vote for both DVD Player and Calculator. I think the Font Book icon is well designed, and I don’t care about the Developer Tools icons. Most of them are probably not designed by Apple anyway.
QuickTime Player do look old. FontBook looks good, though the F could stand a bit more out, perhaps with a cool blue tone.
How would you design the Calculator-icon? It’s a preview of the window sure, but most calculators are ugly.
Nothing wrong with the iSync, Mail or Preview IMHO.
NetInfo Manager… it’s just so boring…
I’m surprised nobody’s said this one. Folder icons. I think Mac OS X’s folder icons are atrocious. I use the TiCons folder icon from Xanthic suite.
http://tisuite.xanthic.net/
Wanna see some of these icons really close? I mean bigger than 128×128 pixels? Look here!
A toss up between Network Utility and Sherlock. Wait no, there is more…
All of the icons for the user’s home folders, the folder themselves, and disk image mounted volumes.
Most hated “new” icon? Automator…too much detail and flashy for an icon…the money could have been spent on something else instead of the design time on it.
The Aplications folder icon. I fifth the DVD Player icon.
The most un-Dock-worthy icon for me has been the old Interface Builder icon..
Thankfully, the entire app has been refreshed and the new icon now fits with the awesome dev tools theme.
I really don’t like the new system preferences icon in Leopard, I know its to tie with the iPhone, but its really ugly.
I personaly don’t like the Finder icon at all, especially in combination with the Mail icon. I ALWAYS confuse those two applications, don’t know why. Two MAJOR applications should definitely have their icons more different …
To me the worst Mac icon is Safari. It’s terrible. Preview is bad.
Quicktime and more recently, iTunes. Quicktime is just a Q, which is not a proper Aqua icon. It would help if they made a sort of icon that representing watching videos, as iTunes is more catered for music.