MacThemes: So if you were offered a choice of a job right now, from anywhere, where would you go? Would you stay at the Iconfactory? Move to New Zealand to work at WETA on Peter Jackson’s King Kong? Or perhaps work on icons at Cupertino, California?

WETA? Well, certainly I’d have to sit down and think that one over. I’m a part-owner of the Iconfactory and an officer of the corporation, so deciding to do anything else would be a complicated situation. As attractive as the idea of working on a film like King Kong is, I honestly don’t know where I would find better co-workers and business partners than I have now, people that I really trust and respect. It would also be really tough to give up the autonomy of essentially being my own boss.

MacThemes: Out of curiosity, has Apple ever offered a job?

I discussed the possibility with a few folks in the HI group once. I told them I honestly didn’t think I’d be very good at doing photo-realistic icons, since I was mainly a pixel-click guy! At that time, Steve Jobs was still restructuring things after his return, and the Iconfactory was also really starting to take off business-wise, so I opted to pass. We’ve maintained a good working relationship with them over the years, though they seem content to handle most of their icon needs internally. I do have a few icons in Panther, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say which ones.

MacThemes: Apple’s Aqua icon set has remained largely unchanged over the last several system refreshes. If you were in charge of this design team, what would you update for Mac OS X Tiger?

I think I’d revisit the way the folders are badged. I’ve never warmed up to it. Maybe take another look at the FontBook icon. For the most part, I really like the icons. My favorites tend to be the ones in the Utilities folder, many of which are the work of Matt Evans. I study those pretty hard. If there is an icon I don’t care for, I just make my own, as I did with GarageBand. I like the guitar in and of itself, but I’m a bass player, so it had to go!

Oh, and change the scary eyes on the Preview Kid, although I heard they’ve done this. I’m sure he’s a nice kid and all, but something just didn’t reduce well…

MacThemes: What about the general Aqua look? Still fresh and stunning, or are you hoping for a comprehensive facelift?

Well, I like the more subdued Panther look - the titlebars, recessed widgets, etc., but the brushed metal Finder I can live without. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it, either. I’d prefer something like SmoothStripes with a Jaguar-styled Finder. Other than that, I like it fine and I love the way it works. While there is always room for improvement, I believe that on the whole Aqua has been a very successful interface. Every time I have to go into OS 9 for some reason, I believe it even more. I sometimes miss OS 9 in a nostalgic sense, but never from a practical standpoint.

MacThemes: So you’re not one of the professionals who think of Aqua as too bright, and too colorful? Do you use the graphite option, or stick with the default blue?

Aqua doesn’t really bother me at all, beyond the brushed metal Finder. I use the default blue. In fact, my OS X installs are pretty “stock”. I’ve always used ASM, and beyond icons and desktops, that’s about it for customising the interface on work machines. Since I have several machines to maintain and can be working across several at once, it makes it easier to keep things simple and consistent.

MacThemes: Now for some reader questions. First off, from Daniel Goffin. “How long does it take you to create one icon? What kind of resources do you use as inspiration/reference?”

Anywhere from one day to six months! Sometimes I work very slowly on something, especially if it is an element that will be used over and over in many other icons. The revised folder in World Of Aqua 3 went through four months of permutations before I decided which one to use. The Kong icon was the first one of that set, and I worked on it for the whole six months it took to generate the other icons. On the other hand, I made the red chair in Matrix Rebooted in one day.

For reference, I use online image searches, books, my own digital photography, basically anything I can get my hands on. For inspiration, I try to get out in the real world. I can walk through both old and new parts of Stockholm and see amazing examples of signage, typography, sculpture and architecture. I love bookstores, whether they are filled with old or new books! I like antique stores, where you can often find loads of inspiration. Lots of objects in the World of Aqua series are items from my daily life, and there are also lots of in-jokes and references to my family and friends.

MacThemes: A quick one from Joy. “What size do your icons start out before you shrink them?”

For the longest time, I worked at actual size. Most of my originals for my OS X icons are 128×128 pixels. Lately, I’ve been endeavoring to generate larger originals, with an eye towards the future. Sooner or later they are bound to get larger, and when that happens, a whole generation of my icon work will get left behind. That’s what happened to us at Iconfactory with OS 9.

MacThemes: And finally, a bit of a humorous question from Kovacs. “Would you still be designing icons for a living if you were a windows user and the Mac platform did not exist ?”

I’m sure I would. Much like the computer market itself, most of our client work is on the Windows side of things. Since I had a hand in determining the icon guidelines for Windows, I feel very comfortable working within them. And icons are icons - the basic problems that need to be solved are rarely related to the rendering style, and almost always revolve around the metaphors used. Looking back, Susan Kare, the designer whose icons first inspired me on the Mac, also designed the first generation of Windows icons, so I believe I would have seen them and become interested no matter which platform I started designing on.

MacThemes: Thank you for your interview, and good luck with future pixel pushing adventures at Pixelhuset and the Iconfactory!

Thanks for having me, Phill, and I wish you continued success with MacThemes.

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