With it’s decidedly future-retro look and grayscale palette, Reverse IP aims to take you back to the era of black & white visuals, and the wonders of emerging technologies of yesteryear but with a decidedly modern flair.

Desktop “tech-noir” styling is now that much closer to achieve with this IconPackage.

While it did not win any awards, it was well-received and praised for its unique styling and approach.
Here’s what the judges had to say and how they rated the package:

Frogboy

(Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock)

Usability

7/10

Originality

7/10

Overall

7/10
A grayscale concept that personally I think might have been better off as a colorful icon package. The problem with grayscale is that it tends to decrease contrast which can reduce usability. The art quality is top notch. Full XP and Vista support, users looking for a more minimalistic theme that’s easy on the eyes will definitely like this.

KarmaGirl

Usability

7/10

Originality

6/10

Overall

5/10

Zoomba

Usability

7/10
This is a very complete icon set that will serve XP and Vista users very well. The only problem with this set is the grayscale can make it hard to differentiate between icons in some cases

Originality

7/10
Grayscale was a big risk and the icons have a very unique look as a result

Overall

6/10
I want to like this set, but gray just doesn’t do it for me and makes it pretty hard for me to read my desktop. If this had a splash of color (not much, just a little) this would be a top-contender in my book.

So take a look for yourself, download, and comment and/or critique if you feel so inclined.  8)

Reverse IconPackage

zip - v1.0 - 7.03 MB

It’s been a while since I last posted on here, hasn’t it?

Well, I got somewhat discouraged at WordPress and some other stuff and the headaches it was giving me affected my creativity but I think I’ve managed to get that all worked out now.  In addition, my sister’s family came to stay with us for a while so the house was a somewhat busy (and noisy!) there for a while.  ;P  My younger brother also graced us with his presence, so it was somewhat of a family get-together.

And on top of that, I’ve been working on some icons for the 2008 GUI Championships.

Shutter Reloaded Headaches

Basically, what was happening was that the way I was using the Shutter Reloaded plugin for WordPress to display image previews on one of my posts was causing some major drama and the post just wouldn’t save after a certain number of either characters or perhaps images were shown in the post.  So I had to troubleshoot for a while, but I think I finally resolved it with a little help (yup, you guessed it.. Steph saves the day again ). 

It seems that what I was doing was adding way too many characters or something and it made the post choke or some such so it wouldn’t even save.  Once I’d cleaned out the superfluous code however, things got a little better and I was able to continue with the post, which coincidentally, needs only a final proofread and I’ll be able to post it. 

The Gonzalez family visit

My sister Carol and her husband, their son and newest daughter flew from Mt. Isa in Queensland to grace us with their presence.  During their visit, they lodged in our humble abode and managed to displace me from my usually quiet study, in which I would normally be found up until midnight on most nights… except while they were here. 

Anyways, I got to meet my newest niece and see my youngest nephew also.  Lily (aka. Lily-Bean) was cute, (mostly) quiet and smiley little thing.  She has a habit of breaking out in a huge but cute toothless grin at the slightest provocation.

We pretty much all took advantage of their company while they were here, though “some” (no names given ) managed to monopolize their time more than others.

Lil’ bro also visits

Juan also stopped by for a visit.  He stayed at dad’s and was pretty much visible around town and at our various family functions. He’s a bit dorky but it’s always good to have him around.

Got you that time, didn’t I, Juan? 

Icons for the GUI Championships

Aside from all that, I’ve been working on an icon package which I will submit to compete in the 2008 GUI Championships.

The bi-annual event, “is an inter-website contest in which top graphic designers from around the world compete for $15,000 in cash and prizes.”

So I’ve been hard at work coming up with nice looking-concepts for each icon and getting them drawn and endlessly tweaking them in order to bring them to life so you can enjoy them on your desktops with a little help from IconPackager.

So here’s a small taste of what’s in store.  Bear in mind that these are only small previews of individual icons.

Site Update

After all the drama with the posts, I also finally managed to get the site updated to the latest version of WordPress.  The process was a bit involved and time-consuming but it all seems to have gone off without a hitch and as a bonus I have a complete backup of my site just in case something awful should happen. 

So that’s about all for now.  Keep an eye out for part 1 of the logo tutorial mentioned earlier coming out sometime tomorrow (finally!  I know, i know…   )