Sublime Text 3.0 features many new features and improvements…also a new icon. Griping about change is a bit passé, but here I am. Gripers gotta gripe. I realize that this is only a logo, and that they can be changed by the user…but this is a demonstrably terrible logo. Firstly, the old logo communicated something about the app. It was a key cap, much like the ones that must be tapped and poked to use sublime text. This new logo is abstract to the point of near meaninglessness. And while icons needn’t always carry meaning this icon seems a little blind to what meaning it edges against. Beyond being vaguely reminiscent of the “cool s”, it also looks a heap like a broken capital N, or, you know, a bit like the insignia of the Schutzstaffel, or SS. Does any of this matter in the long run? Probably not, but iconography can help to shape the personality of a product (see Susan Kare’s work for Apple). Product design and app development aren’t purely technical. There is also a good bit of theatre involved. The set needs to be dressed.
