"David Lanham is one of the most popular Mac designers today, best known for his icons and illustrations on his website, his two themes Amora and Somatic, and the designs for sites My Dream App and MacThemes 2.0 (along with Renato Valdes Olmos). He currently works at the Iconfactory, creating freeware icons as well as commercial designs for clients like Canonical, Microsoft (Vista, XP, XBox 360), MacPractice, and Sybase. Austin Heller and Sam Gwilym of MacThemes sat down with David to get a closer look at his life as a designer, his thoughts on desktops, and his opinions on Aqua and other themes." My take: David Lanham is one of my favourite artists - ever. His work is amazing, and almost instantly recognisable. It is definitely recommended to take a peek at his portfolio.
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Member since:
2005-07-08
Member since:
2006-08-22
Member since:2005-06-29
The interested reader finds his own way to the other info.
Welcome to the internet. Linking is important - not only for you as a reader, but also for, in this case, David Lanham. By linking to his work, I acknowledge it, I give him the proper credit.
On top of that, if you browse through our archive, you'll soon realise the actual story links are generally 'long' links, covering a sentence or a sequence of words, where the less important, contextual links are single words/names. It's a conscious decision. We're not Digg.
Edited 2007-09-27 17:59 UTC
Member since:
2007-03-03
I really like how unique all of his work is. I would say his crowd surfing earth is f'ing genius (I would say that about everything in his portfolio). One thing that I don't appreciate, is all the crumby web 2.0 glossy buttons and banners that look like they were inspired in part by Mr. Lanham.
Edited 2007-09-27 18:06
Member since:
2006-04-03
How close is art direction really tied to operating systems, such that OS News ought to be the reporting authority?
Don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in this article, as I've been following Mr. Lanham since I discovered him through DrunkenBlog way back when.
Is OS news expanding it's interests?
Member since:2006-01-02
Member since:2006-04-03
The news article presents him first as an artist, then secondly (and with less connotation) as a UI designer. I love his works as an artist, but would be hesitant to call him a UI designer.
And should artists really design UIs? This would devolve into a discussion on the definition and purpose of art, but this whole article could also devolve into the Apple-centric argument.
I'm just sayin' I never noticed the GUI category before. Then again, there is a nerddom category, so why ought I care? OSnews is still my site of choice, a lovely aggregate of topics that I enjoy.
Member since:2005-11-14
Artists didn't design the Mac/Lisa UI. Programmers did. The sole artist on the staff, Susan Kare, was in charge of designing icon sets and the pixel fonts (she also designed the icon sets for OS/2 Warp). The UI was largely the work of Bill Atkinson.
http://www.kare.com/design_bio.html
Member since:2006-10-08
"How close is art direction really tied to operating systems, such that OS News ought to be the reporting authority?"
The relation is simple and understandable: OSes profit from users (usage share, oh joy oh market share), and users usually are judging from visual impressions. If the GUI ontop of an OS looks appealing to the user, he will use the OS, for example, instead of a more advanced, more secure and more versatile OS which does not provide an appealing GUI. The first visual impression dictates all further decisions through introduced pre-judices (no negative connotation here). I won't say that's the way it should be, but that's the way it is. Usually, artists do understand the users requirements and assumptions about look and feel better than developers. Developers developers developers developers. Couldn't resist... :-)
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-07-06
i had the pleasure of working with David on artwork for the OQO Model 02. he did all the custom graphics for our in-house developed applications that ship with the device. besides being extremely professional, easy to work with, and prompt, the art was simply beautiful.
brandon @ oqo
Member since:
2006-01-18
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Member since:2005-06-29
spikeb,
His themes are definitely form over function - but then again, so is the 'normal' Aqua interface, as it uses arbitrary colour coding instead of descriptive icons. That's why you see so many Mac themes without any descriptive icons on the window titlebar; they usually pop up on mouse-over.
However, those two themes are not all that David has done. He works for the IconFactory, and hence, has (maybe) worked on the world's most used icon sets: the one in XP, the one in Vista, and Human in Ubuntu. Those are three very descriptive, yet beautiful sets that are, as far as I'm concerned, about as good as usability (icon-wise) gets.
Edited 2007-09-27 21:21 UTC
Member since:2006-01-18
