I am currently looking for a web designer and have to look over a lot of designer work. There is a common thing out there, after Windows XP, there is a “standard” to depict a “user” on the icon with a faceless head. Like on the original XP’s control panel icons:
Almost every design studio has some icon with a faceless man. Just to let you know, I will prefer them and other clones to have a face.
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4 Comments
Jim · May 9, 2018 at 5:00 pm
I know this is late (hopefully you have email notifications on :-) ) but this is actually a deliberate choice on Microsoft’s part. I believe this was to avoid accidentally encoding any specific race into the icons, although obviously even the faceless variety still have a colour. There used to be a document on their site describing this and lots of other aspects of consistent XP icon design (something like “XP icon design guidelines”), right down the precise perspective you should use. This now seems to have been replaced by the Vista version.
Jim · May 9, 2018 at 5:00 pm
Ah, the original article is still up, here’s the link. Presumably by now you have hired a designer who’s knowledgable enough to have seen this document anyway.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997636.aspx
Jim · November 13, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I know this is late (hopefully you have email notifications on :-) ) but this is actually a deliberate choice on Microsoft’s part. I believe this was to avoid accidentally encoding any specific race into the icons, although obviously even the faceless variety still have a colour. There used to be a document on their site describing this and lots of other aspects of consistent XP icon design (something like “XP icon design guidelines”), right down the precise perspective you should use. This now seems to have been replaced by the Vista version.
Jim · November 13, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Ah, the original article is still up, here’s the link. Presumably by now you have hired a designer who’s knowledgable enough to have seen this document anyway.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997636.aspx