By now you have probably seen the new iTunes 10 icon revealed by Steve Jobs during the Keynotes yesterday. As he explained, the reason for the icon redesign is to lose the compact disc concept in the old version. Since the reveal, I noticed several of my designer friends weren’t too thrilled with the new icon. I don’t hate it myself, but I’m also not too impressed with it. The music note is too large for the icon as a whole, and it feels awkwardly forced onto the background. It doesn’t have that consistent “breathing room” found in the other OSX round icons. See Dashboard, Time Machine, Safari etc.
My Take
I feel the single 8th note looks better than the current beamed notes because the curves look more harmonious with the circular icon shape. Of course this deviates from the original icon. For branding consistency it may not be a good choice on my part. I also ditched the blues. There are way too many blue icons out there already. To me, music should be more energizing and more lively. I went with a subtle rainbow palette in the center and an orange as the base color.
I can’t say my version is better, since I totally ignored the branding concerns. But I’ll be using this version on my desktop.
Update
I found some great iTunes 10 icons created by other talent designers. Check out Chris Carlozzi and Angela.
Comments 27
09-02-10
Great – I love your version too. So how about making the ICO available then we can all benefit (please, please)? ;-)
09-02-10
I really like your icon! Do you plan sharing it?
Thanks and regards
09-02-10
A mono version of that would look pretty cool with the contrast dialed up.
Yes please.
09-02-10
Ooh! Love the sunburst look! More warmth to it than the new standard blue.
09-02-10
Thanks guys, glad you like it. I’m going to tweak it some, then release it here so you can download. I did this mockup pretty fast last night and later realized at smaller size, the ♪ doesn’t show up as well since it becomes very skinny. I’ll have to do a fatter, stubbier version of it.
09-02-10
Really like the icon! I agree with the vibrant colour choice. Just as a note (gross pun), Apple’s iTunes icon is a beamed pair of 8th notes, not 16th notes.
09-02-10
@Ryan, good catch, fixed. However it’s really a beamed pair of quarter notes, no?
09-02-10
I prefer your icon, but just to be a pedantic bastard: I need to point out that your “8th” note versus their “16th” note is technically inaccurate. They’re using 2 barred 8th notes (quavers in English), while you’re just using 1. All 3 of them are 8th notes. A 16th note has 2 flags or bars, instead of just one. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_%28note%29]
All that said though, your design is way better ;)
09-02-10
@JIN You can’t have a beamed pair of quarter notes, quarter notes don’t have flags. They’re just stemmed, so they’re separated.
09-02-10
@Ben, yeah I realized it was wrong after @Ryan pointed it out. So I went wiki-ed it. Isn’t Apple’s version a pair of quarter notes? My music knowledge really sucks. I took 2 years of piano in high school and have since forgotten just about everything.
09-02-10
Sexy. ‘Nuff Said.
09-02-10
A quarter note (crotchet) is 4 to a bar. A whole note is a semi-breve – takes 4 beats, a quarter note takes a single beat, an 8th a half beat, a 16th a quarter beat etc.
Anyway, that’s really not the topic of the blog post, so it’s kind of irrelevant other than correction of a slight inaccuracy in your writing.
09-02-10
@Ben, @Ryan, thanks for pointing it out! that’s why I love comments, I learn something new everyday…
09-02-10
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_%28music%29: “Notes lasting a quarter note (crotchet) or longer cannot be beamed.” So notes without a quaver (a quarter note or longer) aren’t beamed. So the type of note on both yours and Apple’s is an eighth note. I’m getting rusty – I had to look that up!
09-02-10
The new icon also looks terrible in Windows as the shortcut arrow cuts in on it too much and the superbar icon is too busy when it’s reduced to that tiny size (it’s the white border on the blue circle that makes it a mess).
Just all in all too much going on within the tiny confines of that circle. The old one had the note busting off of the CD. Why they didn’t just do that and make the blue circle look like a digital portalway, I don’t know.
Oh, and Ping sucks.
09-02-10
The Apple version looks third party, like some cheap iTunes imitation, I no likey, I too like your version. I just look at the detail in the Safari icon and then this, I hope the other icons don’t follow this model because who knows what’s next ……….OSX by Microsoft
09-02-10
I think it’s beautiful. You should check it at smaller sizes to make sure the end of the curved beam doesn’t get lost or plugged up.
09-02-10
@Will, I rarely use iTunes since I don’t buy music or movies. I definitely won’t get on PING since, I have a terrible taste in music. I don’t want others to know that :)
@Nic900, thanks. Yes, it was a bit surprising when I first saw it.
@Octosink, I checked and it doesn’t look good at smaller size yet. That’s why I haven’t posted the source file for people to download. I’ll be tweaking it soon. I’ll make the note fatter.
09-02-10
Not sure if this is specific to Windows7 or not, but Windows Media Player uses the 1/8 note in their iconography: http://bit.ly/bxq19B
09-02-10
A very good alternative but imho, i don’t think this qualifies to be an Apple icon. No disrespect, but Apple icons mostly use blue/green and other subtle colors which signify corporative soul, professionalism and stability. Few or all these reflect the company.
Red/orange however, signifies luck, anger and valiant which is quite not the message Apple is trying to send, right?
But I agree with you when you say ‘Music should be more energizing and more lively’… so, this icon would look demanding for any other company (maybe grooveshark, whose icon looks apparently close to yours) but surely not a good branding move for Apple… as you know, they give attention to the tiniest of details and even their icons will signify a lot more than just what i mentioned above.
I may be wrong here but this is what I feel… Once again, great work on the icon… (another version with the circular gradients inverted would just make the pair outstanding)
09-03-10
@Christian interesting. I guess it’s whatever symbol they decided to go with first. I don’t see Apple changing the beamed 8th notes.
@Richie, I totally agree with you. I see my version as, “If I don’t like the new icon from Apple, maybe i’ll use this one instead.” As I said in my post, I didn’t design this with Apple’s branding in mind. I admire Apple’s attention to details, but I feel the new iTunes10 icon is a bit disappointing. Even personal preferences aside(my own taste of colors, symbol), the consistency is definitely off from their other great icon work.
09-03-10
The shadow is a little bit too much for me. To me music should be calm and relaxing so I prefer blue icons. Just my personal taste.
09-03-10
Looks great. How do I download this without the grey background so that I can start using this? :)
(or am I blind?)
09-07-10
Hi Jin
When can we download your icon. I love it.
09-08-10
Looks great. I just used the iTunes 9 icon ‘cos I’m still a CD’s kinda guy.
09-10-10
I love the icon, it really looks great.
02-19-11
Compositionally, I really like your version. I wonder, though, if reversing the gradient colors might help the eight-note stand out a little better. And I absolutely agree about the breathing room, and love the insouciance of the little flag that single eight-notes get. Great balance!