Icon Color Coding Nitpicks

Pyro·Nov 20, 2015·87 votes·15,675 views

Let's take a look at this simple comparison:

http://i.imgur.com/lkifreE.png

Seems like no difference? Well, look again:

See the point now? Current icon of the Eye of the Equinox stands out like a sore thumb when you look at the other eyestones falling in line with their GP10 origin. Here's a quick fix:

http://i.imgur.com/Bz5COlz.png

"Get the red trinket!"

"Which one?"

Another problem here. Color- coding is a great thing when it comes to shortening the names of commonly used items. "Red smite, "blue smite", (rip) "purple smite" - now that we have two different lens trinkets to choose, it might be a good idea to give them distinct colours. Example:

http://i.imgur.com/N5LKTCJ.png

Association is simple: oracle = pink.

The last nitpick is the least necessary one.

http://i.imgur.com/XuhVA8o.png

I'm not even saying it needs to happen, it just can.

26 Comments

RiotRiot WhistNov 20, 201586 votes

You bring up some good points, I agree that Equinox is weirdly out of place. I'll forward this thread to the people involved in making our item icons.

Awesome job laying all this out with visuals [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

TurquoiseYoshiNov 20, 20152 votes

How about the other ones? Any opinions on those?

PyroNov 20, 20155 votes

To be fair, there are arguments in favour of leaving the other two as they are - there is no reason not to change the Sweeping Lens to Oracle Alteration, unless you give some sort of unique property to Lens (I'd be much in favour of preventing - not revealing! - stealth), so Oracle is basically "red upgrade". This is mostly a gameplay problem, though. If the trinkets are distinct items, they deserve distinct colors.

With the "yellow smite", it's not even the biggest problem with smite items. I'm not colorblind, but it's quite difficult to tell the difference between Devourer and Warrior. It's great that Sated Devourer has a distinct gem colour - last year I've been already suggesting making Devourer yellow. It would be nice to tell these items apart without hovering over them - and there isn't even a chance to do so while watching competitive play. Of course there's casters, or sometimes the components being purchased earlier - but it's not always the case, and sometimes people tune in later on, even people who have played thousands of games, and they will have trouble determining if one of the players is stacking or not. Well now there's the wolf, but still. Just make the tint a bit brighter, pink-ish. Make it stand out from Warrior.

I'd say that teal jungle item wouldn't be bad if we weren't so used to saying "red smite", "purple smite", "blue smite", "nobody buys Poacher's Knife".

Last nitpick is something else from the last season: Elixir of Iron looks out of place. Before Elixir of Ruin got removed, they shared the yellow-ish color scheme, which was one thing - now its background runs in a diagonal manner, while Sorcery and Wrath have theirs as an aura.

Other than that, forward my thanks to the icon team - the latest batch of icons has been consistent, sharp, and always an upgrade (Ravenous Hydra aside, that one got a bit blurred) and overall they have been great at their job. I love the little details such as Shadow Isles crest on Lost Chapter or fish fins on Staff of Flowing Water. It's also funny when some never used files leak with the deploy, such as the updated icon for already scrapped Spellbreaker. I'm the guy who uploads them to LoL Wiki, I check that stuff :D

PS. Do you have a list of icons to update? Boots of Mobility look... aged.

TerntNov 20, 201512 votes

I wish the Tracker's Knife smite would turn Green. I have grown so accustom to seeing the color smite, when I see the plain Yellow it makes me freak out thinking I haven't build an item yet. Yellow is the base color, so the smite should change to the item background color.

TussNov 20, 20151 votes

I have to keep telling myself that I can actually use smite on camps when I get item 3711 instead of saving it for ganks and fights like usual when I get item 3706

TerntNov 21, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I have to keep telling myself that I can actually use smite on camps when I get instead of saving it for ganks and fights like usual when I get

Yeh, it's honestly a terrible feeling knowing I can't smite champions. But the wards for Lee Sin are just too amazing. I still am thinking sightstone on Lee is better than the new weapon though.

JakraNov 20, 201511 votes

Would it not be better if the Tracker's knife remained green and change the Smite icon green accordingly?

A green smite icon would be better than the vanilla yellow, so then it's not confusing each other.

RisenDarkKnightNov 21, 20151 votes

But then that would imply smite itself has new properties or changed. That would confuse me at least, and probably new players as well. I think changing the color of the item would make more sense, since smite isn't being changed by the upgrade.

WykiLokiNov 20, 20155 votes

For the sake of coherency, I agree with most of the color changes.

The only one I'm a bit iffy about is the red trinket one. There's no reason NOT to upgrade it once you hit level 9, unless you love walking away after sweeping without destroying the ward... and let teammates get extra gold from destroying ward... which is like, friggin pointless. I'd even argue that it takes away from the coherency/unique identity since adding a purple trinket just to differentiate from the un-upped red makes it confusing.

... this is assuming people upgrade their reds, or even get it in the first place. #bronzelife

RisenDarkKnightNov 21, 20151 votes

Actually I sometimes use the regular red trinket. It lets you check brushes from long range which is useful if you are playing a squishy support/squishy jungler with trackers. It also lets you know if stealthed champs are in there from afar (such as evelyn who wouldn't be seen by a blue trinket). I find the duel utility of having a mini blue trinket as well as being able to kill wards useful over the ability to kill extra wards per use. Players at my elo dont' ward enough to find more than one per use of oracles, but checking a bush from afar and being able to clear drag/baron is useful. Honestly there are just way less wards on the map to kill since you can't buy green wards, yellow trinket is much much weaker, and sightstone got nerfed.

But Im NunuNov 21, 20151 votes

One thing players seems to forget is that sweeped wards only reveal the champs around it if it is attacked. So in theory you can just sweep and walk past it to gank and not destroy it. If you have to get close then the enemy may see you before you can sweep. Yeah the enemy is able to see the x on the ward but most often they would just think it timed out if the vision is gone (and don't move cam to check).

Deadly QuillsNov 20, 20154 votes

I gotta say though, I really like the blue green color they used for the new jungle item.

LegalisskullNov 21, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Cyb3rpunk Panda,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=FjJxsXr5,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-11-20T19:37:52.982+0000)

I gotta say though, I really like the blue green color they used for the new jungle item.

Heck yeah, the color is fantastic. Something different than your typical "base" colors; adds some appreciated flare to the colors.

Lithium RosaNov 20, 20152 votes

Aside from eyestones, actually after a whole year I still have to read description every single time to find out which is the ad/cd, which is tanky and which is devour for the jungle items

Lithium RosaNov 20, 20151 votes

I've played league since S2, over 4000 games, I jungle at least 15% of my game, this never happened to me on other items, I don't even know why.

RisenDarkKnightNov 21, 20151 votes

Yeah the jungle item enchants are so hard to see when~~ spectating~~ watching LCS. They are just little gems in the corner of an item in a small space on the screen. Unless the caster tells you I usually can't tell if they are going cinderhulk or runeglaive (and people build both on Elise and she was one of the most played junglers for the last split) the green and blue are so similar for such a small icon. Likewise, the red and purple of warrior/devourer is probably hard too, but that wasn't really an issue in the LCS.

DreamspitterNov 20, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Let's take a look at this simple comparison:

http://i.imgur.com/lkifreE.png

Seems like no difference? Well, look again:

See the point now? Current icon of the Eye of the Equinox stands out like a sore thumb when you look at the other eyestones falling in line with their GP10 origin. Here's a quick fix:

http://i.imgur.com/Bz5COlz.png

"Get the red trinket!"

"Which one?"

Another problem here. Color- coding is a great thing when it comes to shortening the names of commonly used items. "Red smite, "blue smite", (rip) "purple smite" - now that we have two different lens trinkets to choose, it might be a good idea to give them distinct colours. Example:

http://i.imgur.com/N5LKTCJ.png

Association is simple: oracle = pink.

The last nitpick is the least necessary one.

http://i.imgur.com/XuhVA8o.png

I'm not even saying it needs to happen, it just can.

In the first one I cant tell the colors apart ....at all.

DrCyanideNov 20, 20154 votes

It's the background glow, they added a green effect similar to the green glow in the other Targon items.

SukishooNov 21, 20151 votes

I personally like the Equinox icon.

DesideriumNov 21, 20151 votes

It's supposed to look spacey. The green background will take the space look away. It needs to be done in a better way.

The yellow background for Poacher's Knife needs to be a thing; I agree on that.

WillboNov 21, 20151 votes

Why not change the smite to green instead of the knife background to yellow? I like that better. The knife's smite looks EXACTLY like normal smite to me, and that's because I'm colorblind.

Also, i can't see any difference in your Green eye items' icons. They look exactly the same to me.

MegamanEXE79Nov 21, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Why not change the smite to green instead of the knife background to yellow? I like that better. The knife's smite looks EXACTLY like normal smite to me, and that's because I'm colorblind.

Technically, the only reason smite changed color from yellow to blue/red/purple was because the jungle item changed smite, and we've just gotten SO used to that happening thanks to Season4. Tracker's knife literally doesn't change smite, so changing it to green might make players think that there are new smite effects, when there aren't.

Even the old Poacher's knife turned smite white because there were new smite effects, even if no one ever dared to use it.

It might just be a better idea to turn Tracker's Knife yellow like OP suggested. The only downside is that now, you've locked Tracker's Knife as the ONLY jg item that doesn't change smite. If they ever wanted to make a new jg item in the future that, say....drops a poro that helps you like Malzahar's voidling, that item wouldn't change smite either. But it wouldn't be allowed to be yellow for clarity's sake though. :/

I hope that made sense.