The new icon stlye will feature modern design elements

Jan 23, 2019 17:30 GMT  ·  By

The upcoming GNOME 3.32 desktop environment, due for release in mid-March, will come with a plethora of new and improvements across its default apps, artwork, and core components, including a radical new icon style.

Besides the slightly revamped default theme, it looks like the GNOME 3.32 desktop environment will come with a "radical new icon style,"  along with new guidelines for app developers to provide a more unified icon style across the GNOME ecosystem.

GNOME designer Jakub Steiner writes in his latest blog article about the improvements needed for the revamped icon style to be included by default with the GNOME 3.32 release of the open-source desktop environment used by numerous Linux-based operating systems, including Ubuntu.

"One of the major project-wide goals GNOME over the past years has been empowering app developers," said Steiner. "Just as Builder is about providing a seamless development workflow, and Flatpak is about enabling direct distribution, this initiative is about making good icons more attainable for more apps."

The new icon style will feature several components to make it accessible to newcomers who want to design icons for the GNOME ecosystem, including a grid, a new color palette, as well as a set of recommended base shapes. The Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) was also updated with more details on how to design app icons.

New Icon Preview app makes icon design workflow faster and smoother

With the upcoming icon style redesign, Jakub Steiner introduced a new app called Icon Preview, created by Zander Brown, that promises to make icon design workflow faster and smoother by allowing designers to quickly get started from a template, previewing the icons in various contexts as they are designing them.

Icon Preview will also allow you to export your icons the SVG format for use in apps, but this feature is coming in a future version, says Jakub Steiner, who welcomes graphics designers wishing to contribute to GNOME's new icon style to join the team. The GNOME 3.32 desktop environment will be available starting March 13, 2019.

Icon Preview app
Icon Preview app

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