Notae wins the contest for the notepad name (congratulations, ty). So, now I get to run through the code and so on and make all the right changes. Yay me.
Now, who makes a good icon? If you make icons or icon sets (or know someone that does), let me know. If you make ‘em free, you get a copy. If you charge, let me know how much. I’ll need an app and some basic toolbar icons (for now let’s say, three: new note, delete note, and save notes, ).
If you decide to make an app icon out of the goodness of your heart, lemme know. Otherwise, gimme a web link in the comments. Thanks.
Hey, if you need beta testing, please sent it my way, ultimately with its license key!
Made an icon for Notae, an upcoming notepad editor for Mac. Here it is :
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Yes, and that was one change. Then there’s menus, the project name, the SVN repository itself, the names of a class or two, the filename for the app’s icon, etc. Took like 10 minutes, but I like to complain.
On that note, I’ll need some translators in a month or two…
rough b&w white concept sketch for notae icon. if you like this idea, let me know and i’ll refine it further, add some sort of utensil element, color, shading, etc
i think probly at the smaller sizes (or maybe at every size) it would be better to remove the app name.
Has potential. I emailed some tweaks to you. I’d like to see how those come out.
Here’s a new version incorporating some of your suggestions.
- reversed orienation from v1 – added pen graphic, in accordance with apple’s guidelines for app icons – removed app name – added varying shades of pale yellow (parchment-esque) for depth
i can see now that it will need some hand-tuning at 64px and below — more space between the blacks, particularly around the pen, and probly thinner black lines.
ps. any plans to add persistent login to this site?
Looks better. I suppose the only problem now is perspective. It needs to have the stack of papers have the standard Mac OS X perspective (a la Text Edit, Mail, and a host of others). In addition, the yellow should be de-saturated a little (think slightly aging paper, 40-50 yrs.) and the pen should be a touch smaller, like the Text Edit pen.
I like the thick lines, the stack of papers, and that form of pen. That much works great.
here’s version 3 of the icon:
- moved to a more top-down perspective – tweaked colors (more to do here) – added tweaks to improve readability at smaller sizes (more to do here) – resized pen a little – added shadows behind pen and under stack
Trackback do not include img tag, so here it is :
It looks really nice, but it doesn’t convey the atmosphere of the app that I’m making. Not having seen it, I can’t hold that against you.
It’s more utilitarian than it is casual. I guess that’s the best way to put it. The interface is similar to Smultron or xPad. The icon I made for it looks similar to Text Edit’s icon, if that helps. Also, the logo is “notae” with a final “ae” diacritic and in Helvetica Neue Bold. If the icon conveyed note-taking well enough (this one seems to) the name could be omitted. If you look at your dock, very few include the app name for this reason (and small icon legibility).
So I’ll be able to get that atmosphere (is it a code or a text editor?)
It’s a notepad, a text editor. The interface is not final, so I don’t want to float screenshots around. And with it not final, it’s unlikely to help. Just think of something a little older and more sophisticated than today. I almost went with the name Moleskine just for the sheer meaning attached to the name, but decided not to be that haughty. So think of that concept.
Specifically, look at the existing programs xPad and Smultron. The interface leans towards xPad in cleanliness (the “get out of my way” aspect) and Smulton in organization (split view, etc.). It will not be metal.
Ligature is specifically what I meant, I suppose. I’ve sadly been out of type for about a decade. At any rate, it’s originally Latin, not Scandinavian. In Latin, as far as what minor research I’ve done says, one can either use the ligature or not as it is purely a typographic notation. In some northern European languages, however, it is a vowel in and of itself. I am not using it in that sense.
Typographic Ligature
AE
If it has some negative or mis-connotation in another language then I suppose that’s good for a laugh. Much like a coffee shop in town called “La Tazza Fresca” which is “The Fresh Cup” in English. However, colloquially, this could also mean “the clean toilet” in Italian. (As English-speakers tend to refer to a toilet as a “bowl,” some Italians tend to refer to it as a “cup.”) This, at least, was pointed out to me by an Italian friend who broke down in laughter when he saw the name. I have no way to know if it’s true, but it sounds reasonable.
Their “cups” weren’t too “fresh” — which was another point of laughter, in a sense.
Classical Latin didn’t have any ligatures (or lowercase letters, for that matter) but the ligature was developed by medieval writers. Why? Well, the Roman “ae” diphthong (pronounced the same as it is in Hawaiian, similar to the English long I (as in “ice” or “sigh”) gradually turned into a single vowel sound (more similar to an English long A) so because it was now a single vowel rather than a diphthong, they wanted to write it as a single character.
Modern practice is to write it as the Romans did (albeit with lowercase letters, as all caps is not very easy to read) unless one is trying to emulate the style of medieval writings.