Highlight: Duke -or- How to Use Art Responsibly
Apologies to Duke for this taking forever! My writing is even sloppier than normal when I’m sick, so the post quality is not great. <3<3
There are very few people who produce UIs that I would use; in fact, the list is three people long. Duke is one of those three people, and the astounding thing is that I’d probably use all of his UIs. This post, how to use art responsibly, could apply to any of Duke’s recent UIs, and extreme examples aside, it could apply to any UI he’s made. There’s more gushing in the body of the post, but for now let’s look at two screenshots
Download! *** See bottom of the post for the profiles to load!!!!!!
Duke’s UI
Before getting into the art-part of the post, I thought I’d take a moment to remark on a few things I like and don’t like generally about Duke’s UI. As a spoiler the only thing I really don’t like is the outlining on the cast-bar text, but this isn’t really Duke’s fault so I’ll let it slide. I do like how he’s brought his action bars up to his unit frames, as well the way he’s included the ToT text on the target frame itself rather than above it. He’s included the cast-bar and power bar in the border frames of his action bars and unit frames respectively (much like Maggs). I like the integration of rune tracking into the player frame itself. He’s really brought everything together in a nice cluster which seems relatively usable and is very attractive.
Outside the art (and everything I mentioned above), this UI isn’t that remarkable.That’s a misleading statement, which boils down to “outside of the things that make this UI awesome, it’s just a regular UI.” Well, obviously. But one thing folks can take away from Duke’s UIs is that finish work separates a simply mediocre UI from a great UI – and while I’ll get in trouble for saying this, I’d have to say that Duke’s making the best looking UIs these days by a wide margin, and with this UI I think he’s moving into Chim territory.
On the Use of Art
A graphic should never be the beginning point of a UI, since the graphic doesn’t contribute to the functionality of the UI is makes very little sense to design around it. Rather, a graphic should only function to compliment the rest of the UI to make it more visually appealing. Even then, graphics should be used sparingly and only when they do not come at the detriment of visibility. It is ideal for an art element to contribute to the functionality of the UI, and that’s what we see in Duke’s UI. Duke’s UI stands out because the art is integrated directly into the functional elements of the UI. Instead of just using some horrible vector graphic, or putting leaves on everything, Duke has instead used negative spaces in relatively minimal textures to make the textures into functional elements themselves (that’s a bit of a stretch honestly, they’re just pretty borders in the end).
Not only is Duke’s art “functional,” but it’s visually interesting. The way he uses negative space in the middle of the unit frame/action bar cluster is pretty neat, and gives the UI some dynamic visuals without adding additional textures. “Folding the corners of the texture in” is also something I haven’t seen before. I’m not necessarily crazy about it on the action bars (I’d find it distracting, probably) but I think it looks great on the minimap and unit frames.
What this means, as sort-of a categorical rule on the use of art, is that art must be minimal and it should be functional. That doesn’t mean that you MUST get rid of your button facade texture or move towards a thin black border on everything (although, it’s the best). But, like what Duke’s done here or what Ishtara’s done with his line fetish, art elements in a user interface should never be the basis for the UI -nor- should be they inhibit gameplay in some way. So, yeah.
*** Load these profiles
- /acb “Duke”
- /sldt “Doobiest of Ysondre”
- /dom “Defaut – fixe”
- eavesdrop “Doobiest of Ysondre”
- proximo “Doobiest of Ysondre”
- omen “Doobiest of Ysondre”
- recount “Doobiest of Ysondre”
I don’t like anyone.
