I finally got my new 27″ Core i7 iMac delivered. It’s frickin’ glorious. Immediately, I set out to customize the crap out of it. The very first thing I did was install Candybar from Panic and change all the icons I could. Turns out, I’d have to do a little design work for myself. Read on to see how and why I created this.

I started with the Flurry System, Flurry Extras, and Flurry Extras 2 icons over at Iconfactory. They are great icon sets, and look like iPhone icons. I was amazed at how many custom icons were available for software I already own like Coda, Transmit, and Google Chrome.

Unfortunately, a custom icon for my key piece of productivity software, Omnifocus, was not available. What’s a geek to do? Well, make one myself, of course. Now, be warned, I’m a developer, not a designer. But it’s not like I completely suck either.

Here’s the challenge: You can’t just take an existing icon and “shove it in a rounded-corner square.” There’s more to it than that. Let’s take a look at the before vs after versions of the Mail.app icon.

Before:

After:

As you can see, it looks completely different. That’s right, it’s not just the Mail.app icon shoved into a square box. It’s been completely redesigned. That’s what I needed to do with the Omnifocus icon.

So here’s the before version of the Omnifocus icon, bone stock:

Now, one could argue that the iPhone version of the Omnifocus app already has an iPhone icon… because it’s on the iPhone.

Looking at that though, and considering that I like my Omnifocus app to sit in the dock right next to my Mail app, it would look virtually identical at a glance in my tiny little dock (I did mention I’m now on a 27″ iMac now, didn’t I?). So, that clearly wasn’t going to work.

Looking at the original, there is one, and only one, very striking aspect of this icon. The purple color. That’s absolutely the thing I notice about the icon in my dock.

Now, I could have gone with just a purple-colored icon, and I’m sure that would suffice on a daily basis. But since I knew I’d also see this when I CMD-Tab, and in Coverflow, I wanted something that had just that extra little bit of ‘pop’ to it.

Adding a big checkmark, inspired from the actual iPhone version of Omnifocus was a start. But I also wanted the Omni Group’s logo on the app somewhere. That took a little bit of wrangling to get it just right. I also added the letterpress effect just so it wouldn’t be so plain looking.

I’ve posted the .ICNS file over at drop.io if you’d like to use it also.

I posted it on the Omni Group support forums, too, and someone mentioned they’d like to have one without the drop shadow so they can use it as a custom icon for the actual Omnifocus iPhone app after they did a jailbreak and background replacement.

I didn’t design this icon to be an actual iPhone icon, rather an iPhone-like Mac icon. Regardless, altering the icon was trivial, and if you’re looking for that one, you can find that one over at drop.io as well.

Let me know what you think, but bear in mind:

• I’m not a designer
• I made this for myself to fill a specific need
• I don’t work for Omni Group (although they are the best damned 3rd part Mac app shop around.

I finally got my Google Wave invite today, and the very first thing I did was make a Site Specific Browser (SSB) with Fluid.app.

Here’s what it looks like:

And here’s a detailed view:

As you can see, even the menu icon uses the Google Wave icon… just a default choice you can make when creating the SSB.

Now to put it on my iPod Touch and my other Macs…

I’m on a panel at IU’s Statewide IT Conference, and I want you to see it!
If you’re already registered for the event, we’ll be in the University Place Conference Center room 216 from 10:30 – 11:30.

If you can’t make it, you can watch the panel live via an Adobe Acrobat Connect session: Watch Live!

* Note to Adobe: We still call it a breeze session, and there’s nothing you can do about it ;p

Our panel is Professional Development and Leadership: Getting Things Done: A Practical Approach.

On the panel with me is Martin Wagner, Project Manager at UITS for all Podcasting projects across the state. Also, Tom Davis from the University Information Security Office.

To see what other sessions are going on, or for a complete agenda for the conference, you can visit this online program guide.

You’re probably wondering just what we’ll be discussing. The discussion stems from David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done.” UITS has already had an overview presentation about GTD, and IU HR regularly gives introductions to employees throughout the IU network.

This discussion differs from those; while an overview or introduction is helpful, you really can get all that just by reading the book. What you can’t get is examples of practical application of the productivity workflow — especially in an IT-centric environment.

Our panel features all IT workers, at an IT conference, talking about IT. We’ll have a very open discussion, many examples, and lots of collaboration between the panelists and the audience.

So, make sure you attend, or check out the Breeze session live. Don’t make the mistakes we’ve already made for you; find out how IT workers can excel in their daily tasks, and accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

link: http://www.statewideit.iu.edu/