u/Superb-Formal-9139

Hello everyone!

I am a beginner UI designer and a future industrial design engineer. My journey with design started about 4 years ago. I am completely self-taught: it started out of boredom, turned into a hobby, and now I’ve decided that I want to pursue this professionally (which is why I am continuing my studies in industrial design engineering).

I would love to show you my latest work. I am designing a new icon pack for an alternative mobile operating system; the UI is called Pure UI, and the icons are named Pure Icons.

Fundamentally, I love tactile visuals where icons aren't completely flat. I started experimenting with lights, shadows, and materials back in late 2024 to bring real depth and visible layers to the shapes. For me, the gold standard arrived with iOS 26 and its introduction of the Liquid Glass style. I really loved that look and wanted to create something similar, but tailored to my own taste.

Project Structure & Goal: 

I have attached the current 17-piece set, along with a short anatomical breakdown showing how each icon is constructed (Grid -> Base Squircle -> Global Lighting -> Inner Plate -> Content & Materials). The icons are optimized for a fixed canvas size of 184x184 px.

My long-term goal is to publish the complete Design Guide on GitHub with detailed specifications, pre-made templates, and master materials. I want to launch this as a community-driven icon pack that anyone can freely expand and use on Android, Linux, or any other operating system. Naturally, I also plan to include this project in my future professional portfolio.

Project Objective: The main goal of Pure Icons is to establish a cohesive, tactile, and volumetric design system for alternative mobile operating systems (like Sailfish OS, Linux-based mobile distros, or custom Android launchers). I wanted to step away from completely flat design and build a modern, community-driven icon library that feels tangible and premium.

Target Audience: Users of alternative operating systems, open-source enthusiasts, and customization lovers who appreciate meticulous UI/UX details and want a premium, high-fidelity look on their screens.

Design Decisions & Rationales (The "Whys"):

• The 4-Layer System (Phase I–IV): To ensure total consistency across a 17+ icon set, I structured a strict anatomical build path. Every asset sits on a 184x184 px continuous squircle grid.
• Global Lighting Rules (Phase II): A sharp, 1px top highlight ensures the icons instantly pop on pitch-black or very dark mobile backgrounds. This is combined with an inward edge-glow to give a physical "thickness" to the base plate.
• Independent Inner Glow on Glyphs (Phase IV): Instead of keeping the foreground vectors flat, I applied separate inner glows to individual sub-elements (like the wallet inserts or the glass lens on the Map icon). This mimics real-world glassmorphic textures and material physics, heavily inspired by the Liquid Glass aesthetic seen in iOS 26.
• Color Rhythm: Classic color branding (like the red/green/blue office trios) was chosen over experimental earthy tones to preserve instant user recognition (UX) and create a balanced vertical color flow in the grid.

What I am looking for: 

• What do you think about the icons and the overall aesthetic?
• What would you tweak regarding the lighting, shadows, or composition?
• What areas could be improved to make the system even more consistent and polished?

Thank you in advance for all the constructive feedback and helpful advice!

Note: This post was originally written in Hungarian and translated using Gemini to ensure the most accurate English terminology. You can also find me on Instagram under the name HASSEL Design, where I have already posted a couple of preview renders from this project.

Hey everyone,

As a future industrial design engineer and an amateur UI/UX designer, I decided to give Sailfish OS a shot on a Sony Xperia 10 III. I wanted to share my experience because the system managed to both impress and horrify me at the same time.

The Good: The installation took about 40–45 minutes in total. It was my first time doing anything like this, and my first time reading the official installation guide. Every step was clear and easy to follow. Only one link was broken, so I had to find the binary files on Sony's official website myself, but it was no big deal. Overall, it’s a very straightforward process, and anyone with a bit of tech experience could probably get it done even faster.

I bought the licensed version because I was genuinely curious about how Android applications would run. I have to say, I think it’s incredibly cool that outside of Android and iOS, there is a third operating system that is actually usable on a daily basis (even if it requires a few minor compromises). The Android app support works surprisingly well; an app stutters here and there, but I think that’s totally acceptable, and the performance of these apps running in an emulated environment is outstanding.

The Bad (The Dealbreakers): The navigation is incredibly uncomfortable. When you swipe from the right edge, you expect it to take you one step back—instead, Sailfish completely closes the application. You can get used to it, but it’s highly frustrating. To actually go back within an app, you have to rely on dots at the very top of the screen. This is an ergonomic catastrophe, especially on Sony phones with their signature, elongated 21:9 aspect ratio. It makes using the phone with one hand almost impossible.

When you swipe up from the bottom, the full app drawer comes up. This gesture doesn't feel natural either. For better multitasking, I would swap the recent apps view with the full app list. It would be much more logical if swiping up brought up your running apps, while your installed apps just lived on the home screen by default.

Then there’s the top dropdown menu (the Pulley Menu), which I think is a complete disaster. It feels entirely unnecessary. A classic bottom navigation bar would be miles more comfortable and within natural thumb reach.

Finally, the worst part: the default icons are just ugly. I know you can install custom icon packs, but this cluttered icon design, where everything is shaped into weird, distorted hexagons and polygons, is just fundamentally unappealing.

Conclusion: If the system adopted modern Android or iOS-style gestures, completely got rid of the Pulley Menu, and swapped the recent apps view with the app drawer, we would have a near-perfect OS. The European Union should really back them up with some serious funding if they truly want a tech-independent Europe with its own software alternatives.

What are your thoughts on the interface?

Note: The English translation was done with Gemini, the original language was Hungarian.