Sta.sh
Theme
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.......... The design MUST HAVE ONLY 2 COLORS; BLACK AND WHITE
this journal 
I was reading an article on Ars Technica describing the "leaked" pre-beta builds of Office 2010. In the writeup for the Creative Sense icons I expressed dismay at the new Expression branding - see [link]
Now... now with Office 2010, what do we have? From:
[link]
We get the icons in Start Menu:
[link]
Along with a larger shot and in context of the Windows 7 Hybridbar Thingy:
[link]
...I'm speechless. Hopefully those are placeholders.
If not, there are a number of even more difficult problems with this setup as compared to Adobe's - for a start, all the icons are now near-identical silhouettes (previously some elements sat "on top" of the main icon, giving the icon silhouttes some differentiation), not to mention the overloaded letters (PowerPoint, Project, Publisher - try picking out which is which in greyscale).
From the Office 2007 icons, Outlook shows a mail envelope and clock - for email and calendars. Word shows a faux document, Excel a kind of spreadsheet etc. etc. - their meaning was worked into the icon. Here though, the meaning is part of a cropped background, diminishing the icon's readability by pushing its purpose into the background and instead making a Latin letter the "branding".
Adobe, what have you done?!
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