Michael Grosberg wrote:

*toolbox colors (square, arc, star, spiral) - should they be a single color or multiple colors? the original Tango Icon set has them all in white, but I tried to see what they'd look like in multiple colors.

I like them in multiple colors. But I agree that the shine on Elipse makes it look 3D, maybe decrease opacity even more or remove it altogether. The Square icon could be a bit more saturated blue (Sky blue 2) instead of grayish to visually separate it more from the icons above (node, sculpt and zoom are all dull blue and gray.) Love the purple spiral.

*lower / raise selection icons - I couldn't make a nice tango-style icon from the current icon so instead I changed it to look like the raise/lower icon from other applications such as office suites.

To me it seems like somethings missing, maybe use the idea thats currently applied - dotted object as start, an arrow and then normal looking object I love the idea that all layer options have green arrows, and the selection ones are different from that. I always have to rely on text in the current version, icons in the Layer menu are too similar so its great you made the distinction.

*colors of all items which have generic looking squares in them, such as align, transform , grid arrange, clones, etc. I haven't settled on a single color and so some are blue while others are light gray. It shouldn't be hard to change colors as I've attempted to share a single gradient between all of the similarly-colored squares.

I like them gray, although adding a bit more contrast in stroke (Aluminium 5, and maybe Aluminium 4 for fill) could be helpful for us slightly visually impaired :) They look excellent when you zoom in but blur too fast when you zoom out to their normal size. I find the align icons a bit confusing because of the dots (nodes?), Id like to have solid lines there it seems more intuitive, otherwise I feel like its signaling Im using the node tool. Distributing objects doesn't make sense when theres only 2 objects, so there should be 3? Id also find it better if the red lines are made more visible (those are more important than arrows imo).

I couldn't recognize the Skew icons (until I zoomed in of course, they all look great big), I don't know how to improve it... I think all of the icons that contain 2 states of an object (before and after action/transformation) should emphasize the result, and not the beginning state. For example Move horizontally - to me it seems logical to put the dotted object on the left, and the result in solid stroke. Maybe that would help clear the skew icons too. Id love to have the arrows longer too, at least in the Move icons, otherwise they look like starry shapes and dont suggest movement enough.

Fill & Stroke icons - I dont know if its just cos Im used to it but I like the cross better instead of the slash for the No fill and No stroke icon. In Flat color I wouldnt use any gradients, not even for the white sharpening stroke cos it blurs the icon and makes it look too similar to gradient icons, and the goal is to make a distinction. Id also love to see the fills in color and not gray, but don't know which color should be picked, maybe the same red as in No fill and Pattern dots.

I love the small icons for scaling stroke and rounded corners when scaling objects, theyre much better, more clear than the current ones.

I also love the Node icon but (at least in my version) the mouse pointer when using that tool is very pointy and narrow, I love the precision it gives and I think its good to have the icon be more similar to the pointer, more narrow, maybe also use darker Aluminium.

Pencil, Bezier and Caligraphy icons are perfect, so much better than current ones, maybe only change the handle ends to circles instead squares in Bezier tool to make it more consistent with the way they really work. Id love to see handles on gradient icon, with all the new onscreen editing it would be shame to leave them out. The lock is great just maybe could be a bit bigger, the eyes too.

Zooming icons are a bit hard to read, esp. those with more than 1 object as content.

The Raise and lower icons should be flipped, as I said before it feels more natural to have effect on the right (bottom) side, and I think the yellow square could be a bit bigger (1px) without losing clarity. I love the rotate and flip icons, I think I wont need to rely on text anymore for those options.

The path inset, outset and linked offset are not very clear, maybe choose some different colors to increase contrast.

All this is just my personal user input, Im not a usability expert or an experienced designer, I hope all this helps with your work Michael, keep it up

Mihaela