What are “up-to-date” or “modern” icons?

Question

My icons have been (lightly) criticized as "too 1998-ish":

From left to right: refresh; auto/manual refresh toggle; filters; favorites; alerts.

To what was the critique aimed at? What the critic meant with "too 1998-ish"? Can someone show me examples of icons that are considered fashionable these days?

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

it seems that your still working with window 98 pattern....

windows Xp

You can see the difference which one you will like the most?? the same thing is happening with your client he also want which looks good as i like the xp thing.

in 90's we guys wasn't aware of vector,things worked with pixel only,you can see the changes in games later on we had pixel arts in game but as time passes away everyone start caring about vectors the smoothness,actually your working with pixel icons and your client want to see vectors/glossy eye catching and soothing icons

There are some very good articles on

• Rules of modern icon design

• Know Your Icons Part – Modern Icon Design

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You can download some free icon PSD form this site

Modern Icons web Mantra

Answer 2

I think it would be good to browse through some popular icon sets to become familiar with the visual vocabulary that icon set designers use. Look at the Silk icon set I'm sure you'll recognize many in there.

But, essentially I would say that the reason your icons don't look up-to-date is because they really lack refinement and craft, something commonly missing from early era web design.

Anti-alias all your shapes (or none of them), proportion the images similarly, think carefully about communicating the concept behind the action more clearly. And choose a color scheme that is complementary to your surrounding UI.

Answer 3

A few thoughts...

• The icons look flat — there's no effort at a 3D effect, shadows, gradients, texture, etc.
• The colors are very bright and primary.
• All lowercase for auto. I think if it were all caps or small caps that would somehow seem fresher.
• I'm amused by the lime-green HAL for "alerts" rather than something with an exclamation point...

If you want fashionable, try here.