[simjnd]

> There were similar negative reactions back ~15 years ago when Adobe switched to their minimalist icon style.

Adobe icons are terrible and should not be the standard. Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, InDesign 2 were so much more memorable and recognizable than the lazy minimalist slop we have now. Even the first CS or CS2 icons were a thousand times better. The fact that the company behind the most powerful and popular creative software did this is unforgivable.

Some tasteless manager made a PowerPoint about "brand cohesion", got his promotion and ruined it for everybody else.

[MattRix]

I think we fundamentally disagree about what the purpose of icons is. The point isn’t just to be something that looks cool in isolation.

[simjnd]

Great strawman dude (and even if that was my point, they didn't cool in isolation only, they looked good as part of an entire screen of icons too). The purpose of icon isn't to look cohesive within a brand either.

Look at the new Pixelmator icon: geometric shapes overlayed with Bezier Curve handles at the bottom. What does it look like? Vector design. What does the app do? The exact opposite, raster design, pixel painting. What the previous icon signaled.

The previous Compressor icon: A machine compressing film, because despite the name Compressor is for encoding video files. The new icon? Sure with the context of the label you will understand it's something being squeezed, but what? And without the label?

The previous Final Cut icon was unmistakably a movie slate. The new one almost looks like a radio. Why is the pattern under the body? Why is it only at on the bottom and not the top clapper stick?

How are the new ones superior design? How does it improve on anything? It's forcing everyone to learn new icons that convey are less clear, convey less meaning, look uglier, just to serve the corporate interests of "brand cohesion"?

macOS Tahoe icons are a regression on every single front. I invite you to compare Disk Utility (where is the disk now?), or Migration Assistant (where is the notion of migrating from old to new?). And these are just a few examples.