Sascha Talks about MINIUM° - February 16, 2004
Sascha Höhne is one of the most popular Mac artists today, thanks to the high quality desktops and icons that he offers at RAD.E8 DESIGN, a design studio located in Hamburg, Germany. Sascha's Snow.E icon set has rapidly become one of the most popular icon sets available, and his upcoming MINIUM° set is highly anticipated. Yesterday, his redesigned website was opened again with a new look, and here he fields a few questions about his life and work. How was Snow.E first created? Does he plan to create a theme? How goes work on MINIUM°? MacThemes answers these questions in an interview with Sascha and takes a sneak peak at his upcoming work.
MT: Many graphic artists (Xanthic and BBX come to mind) have grown up in families of artists. Does this apply to you? What got you started?
No, this does not apply to me at all. No one in my family was particularly gifted in an artistic way. I also wouldn't be able to say "and that was the day that I started drawing / painting / wrapping houses in fabric".
I grew up without brothers or sisters and both my parents had full-time jobs. So once I was old enough to stay home alone, this just developed in a natural way I guess. I started drawing little things. And these things just got bigger and better. And soon they were made of pixels rather than strokes.
My interest in art and painting (and later computer graphics) allowed me to pursue my hobby as a career. So I could say that I'm happy with what I'm doing.
MT: Have you been a Mac user since you started? What Mac did you use then? What about now?
Yes, I've been a Mac user for as long as I can remember. I've had a C64 and an Amiga 500 before that, but they were just for gaming.
These were my Macs (in chronological order): SE/30, LC II, Performa 630, iMac 233, Power Mac G4 400 and my current machine is a Dual 1 GHz. If all goes well, I will switch to a G5 this year, but not before another speed bump.
I have worked with Windows for several months in my former job, and it just was a miserable experience. If you're used to working on a Mac, it just doesn't feel right. And I, just like so many other ones out there who are stuck with a PC at work, came home and gave my Mac a hug and told it how much I missed it.
MT: As a commercial artist, do you work primarily with computers, or use other techniques?
As I earn my money by doing digital things, I just have to use computers of course. But to be honest, I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm still doing sketches on paper every now and then, but generally I prefer my mouse over anything else. This is the tool that I feel most comfortable with.
I also use a Wacom tablet whenever I feel the urge to paint (which is very rare). So you could say I'm using my Mac and nothing else.
MT: What application do you most often use when creating works such as your icon sets or desktops?
I mainly use the usual suspect, which is Photoshop of course. When you create icons, especially for clients, it might be needed to create them with a vector graphics application such as Illustrator or Freehand, so it can be scaled up for print ads, packages etc. But to be honest, I don't feel quite as home in these apps as do in Photoshop. I will still use them quite often to work out all kinds of shapes, make early compositions. But the majority of my work will be done in PS.
I've also experimented with 3D for icons. Though the results were quite encouraging (my older "Breakfast" icons are fully rendered), I think you can't apply - or better shouldn't apply - this technique to all sorts of icons. There are many icons out there that, while looking artistically pleasing, just have the HELLO I'M RENDERED stamp on their foreheads. Some people may like that, but I don't. And I have only released the Breakfast icons because I feel they (especially the fruits) don't overly look rendered.
Okay, I got carried away. Short answer: Photoshop. And of course IconBuilder by The Iconfactory, which is an indispensable tool if you want to create your icons in Photoshop. It's just great.
My desktop pictures are also done in that one app that I've seemingly mentioned 300 times.
MT: Your Snow.E icon set is one of the most popular and complete on the Mac. How is MINIUM° going to top this?
Whew, that's a good one. Definitely not in terms of the sheer number of icons, because we'd all be using OS XII with its 1024x1024px icons by the time they'd be finished.
I don't even know if I'll be able to top this. To be honest, this is not the driving force behind it. If it were, I'd just be making SNOW.E 3. My goal is to create better quality icons in this 'generation', rather than just repeating. I hope to find the perfect balance between a fancy metal look and natural, more Aqua-like and colorful elements.
MINIUM° is still far from finished (due to time constraints, it's not that I wouldn't like to continue working on them) so it's still too early to say anything more specific. I'm not even sure if the parts that are already finished don't change. Time will tell.
MT: How long did it take to complete the first and second Snow.E icon sets? Is MINIUM° taking less?
I honestly don't remember exact numbers here, other than SNOW.E 2 took looong due to the number of the icons. With all its colors, there are several hundred icons available. Altogether, they were several months in the making. Which is rather short for that number of icons, because a lot of the work was just applying the folder badges to differently colored folders.
MINIUM° will not feature different "flavors" (at least it's not planned), but it will still take a lot of time to make them. Just because I want them to be a lot better.
Many people don't realize that making (good) icons takes a lot of time. It is hard work. You can't just go and design the big 128x128 icon and scale it down so you have the other sizes. Well, you can, but the result will be bad. So you basically have to design the icon several times, once for each of the sizes and decide which details you want to keep for the smaller sizes and which ones you'd rather take out. After all, most of the time the icons are not viewed at 128x128 on the average desktop, but rather at 32x32 or 16x16, so these sizes have to be as polished as possible... which can be very challenging.
Okay, I got carried away again, I admit it. So MINIUM° will probably take about as long as SNOW.E 2, though you can't really compare the two. I've started working on MINIUM° back in mid-2003 and they haven't progressed very much in the last 4 months, due to time constraints. I wish I could work on them more, but damn, I just have to earn money! ;)
MT: What theme (if any) are you running now?
Currently I'm running Apple's Aqua, always with graphite widgets. Though many of the themes out there are very well done, I feel that I can work best with Aqua running. It's so clean and easy on the eyes, a real masterpiece.
The only themes that I ran for longer periods of time are Max Rudberg's "Milk" and "SmoothStripes" (in the time before Panther). They are brilliantly done and I still switch to Milk every now and than, it's just that beautiful.
Though I test almost all new and interesting looking themes, I'm not the person that constantly switches back and forth. I need a consistent look. But I'm sure the future will bring us very nice and smooth themes and once I fall in love, I'll fire up ShapeShifter and not look back.
MT: So far you have succeeded in creating top notch Mac icons and desktops. What about themes?
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Comments
Posted by kovacs at February 16, 2004 10:14 AM | Edit | Delete
Great interview, as an icon designer for share and freeware applications myself I know how long it takes to make a good icon, for every icon I make at least 20 don't see the light of day. Even though I'm just an amateur and I loose a lot of time playing with photoshop I'm sure it's the same for you Sascha. I hereby would like to thank you for your hard work and these amazing icons and desktops we get from you.
Posted by Johan Sahlén at February 16, 2004 10:15 AM | Edit | Delete
Ah, the MINIUM° set looks fantastic indeed. I'm definitely be one of the first to check out the public beta when it hits.
Great interview too.
Posted by Max Rudberg at February 16, 2004 10:26 AM | Edit | Delete
Great interview! And the icons look fantastic.
I think Sascha's point about users using the icons at 32 and 16 pixel sizes is real important. I know some iconsets that look great at 128x128 and when I use them and I only see 32x32 and 16x16 icons they don't looks as good.. Glad to hear that Sascha is taking the time to make the small sizes good looking too.
And I feel honored that Sascha mentioned Milk as a favorite theme :)
Posted by Sascha at February 16, 2004 10:34 AM | Edit | Delete
Max,
that's pretty natural... Milk and SNOW.E 2 look like they were made for one another :)
Great work on your themes, I'm really looking forward to what you do once SS 1.5 comes out...
Posted by Jason Williams at February 16, 2004 10:43 AM | Edit | Delete
I'm gonna love that icon set when it comes out!
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 16, 2004 12:17 PM | Edit | Delete
i'm sure this theme will be as indispensable to me as Snow E.2, which i have used as my system icons for as long as i can remember.
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 16, 2004 03:50 PM | Edit | Delete
and when i say theme, i mean icon set
p.s. great interview!
Posted by at February 16, 2004 03:53 PM | Edit | Delete
i'm not sure if this is possible, but with the stock os x icons, when you drag something on to the folder, it literally pops open, the folder icon itself! is this possible with a custom icon?
Posted by Adam Betts at February 16, 2004 04:02 PM | Edit | Delete
Hi 03:53PM,
Very few icon set do include the support for close/open folder state such as upcoming tiSkin icon set. I'm not sure but I think Snow.E8 icon set do support close/open folder state too.
Currently, you can only add open state via IconFactory's IconBuilder. Hopefully someday Candybar will be able to do this without using IconBuilder.
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 16, 2004 11:03 PM | Edit | Delete
sorry, that was me, macthemes isn't remembering my info
i really hope candybar adds it, it's much better than iconbuilder (imo)
Posted by Hein Mevissen at February 17, 2004 03:37 AM | Edit | Delete
Sasha is one of the best and one of my favorite icon designers!!!
Posted by Gedeon Maheux at February 17, 2004 11:59 AM | Edit | Delete
Re: Candybar and states - Open/drop states are embedded into the icon resources themselves and therefore Candybar does not consider them to be "seperate icons" so they don't get their own wells inside the program. Unless Apple changes the way the Finder deals with open/drop states, Candybar won't be able to make use of them the way you are wanting Adam. FYI.
Posted by Adam Betts at February 17, 2004 01:26 PM | Edit | Delete
Gedeon, thanks for the info :)
Wondering if there is any way Candybar can take both icons and embed them into the icon resources when one click Apply? Maybe use IconBuilder's engine for that?
Posted by Gramage at February 17, 2004 05:40 PM | Edit | Delete
Looks like it could go quite nicely alongside Xanthics TiSkin.
(yeah, I'm still droning on about it, and I don't plan to stop untill it's released and leaves me speechless ;-)
Posted by Phillip Ryu at February 17, 2004 06:13 PM | Edit | Delete
Yes, it does look fine with TiSkin ;)
Posted by Chris McElligott at February 17, 2004 08:53 PM | Edit | Delete
Looks awesome! Thats so true that the icons should look good at a smaller size. When I did my iconset, I didn't even take that into consideration, I'm just glad they turned out ok at a smaller size.
Looking forward to seeing the so called beta :)
Posted by contribution at February 19, 2004 09:23 PM | Edit | Delete
Hey, if we all send Sascha 100 bucks, he won't have to "earn money" (well, it would give him a couple weeks time). That way, he can concentrate on MINIUM. Whataya guys say?
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 20, 2004 01:35 AM | Edit | Delete
uh, how about a little less? yeah, i know, i'm cheap :\
Posted by Drifter at February 21, 2004 12:17 PM | Edit | Delete
If only they were black, then it'd be kick-ass for Omega. :(
Wink, Wink!
Posted by Question... at February 21, 2004 04:44 PM | Edit | Delete
Does anybody know what's going on with Mikkel Madsen's homepage (www.mmicons.com)??? It's been like that for quite a while. One other concern, do William Bart and Mikkel Madsen ever team up for designs? They share the same logo/sign (sphere with an engraved "M"). Anyone know? Please answer. I am indeed confused. Thanks.
Posted by at February 21, 2004 05:51 PM | Edit | Delete
turns out that using icontainers lets you do the open folder thing! it works with the ticons icontainer
Posted by Adam Betts at February 22, 2004 02:40 AM | Edit | Delete
Hi 05:51 PM,
Actually, iContainers have nothing to do with open/close state. They simply store the icons and info.
IconBuilder is only responsible for this kind of thing.
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 22, 2004 05:35 PM | Edit | Delete
oh, cool
Posted by outsider at February 4, 2006 06:58 AM | Edit | Delete
po