I (heart) details. – Nuno-Icons
I (heart) details.
nuno pinheiro
Julho 11, 2026
Design Icons
Take this new Kamoso icon for example.
Most people will see a "webcam" with a overly large lense. Some people might notice the reflections. Almost nobody will notice the tiny details inside the lens itself, the subtle changes in materials, the little bits of visual noise that stop things from feeling too artificial, or the writing around the lense repeating KAMOSOLENS 2026. And yet....
Which naturally raises the question… why bother?
Its not like users are going to zoom into a 256 pixel icon and start inspecting reflections like art critics examining a renaissance painting, (I realy wish you dont 🙂 ). Most of these details exist below the threshold of conscious perception. People don't really see them. At least not directly.
And yet I still think they matter.
The older I get the more I like to think details are a expression of love, of care. The kind of care that makes people do things that make absolutely no rational sense.
I grew up in Portugal and over here mothers have a particular way of saying "I love you". They don't usually say it. Instead they spend two days preparing enough food to feed a small village and then look personally offended when you stop eating after the third serving. The food is the message. The effort is the message. The ridiculous amount of work nobody asked for is the message.
So inevetably I think design works in much the same way.
When somebody spends hours polishing an animation that users will only experience for half a second, when somebody redraws an icon because one highlight feels wrong, when somebody obsesses over spacing differences measured in single pixels, they are saying "I care".
Now make no mistake, as a user I often feel exactly the same level of care in very minimalistic interfaces. Simplicity and care are not opposites. Some of the most thoughtful designs I know are also some of the simplest.
But sometimes overly minimal, dare I say bland, interfaces communicate something else .... disinterest. The feeling that only the minimum amount of work was invested so a feature could exist.
I think users only get to see the final thing, and as a user I find it difficult to care more about something than I believe its creators cared about it.
Thats why details matter to me. Not because people consciously notice every reflection, shadow or hidden joke buried inside an icon, but because details are little traces left behind by the people who made it.
Evidence that somebody cared enough to spend time on things they didnt strictly need to spend time on. And I think people notice that (or I hope they do).
As Plans for Oxygen in Plasma 6.8.
The biggest one is probably the work being done to make Oxygen play much nicer with Kirigami applications. Hopefully the Union effort will enable us to finally start to port things over and tackle some of the rough edges.There is also the usual stream of icons, fixes and random details that somehow consume far more time than they have any right to :)I'm also hopeful we can make some progress on icon selection options. No promises yet... but its definitely on the list of things I would like to see happen. at lest the UI.
So stay tuned, Oxygen continues to slowly move forward. Which is honestly more than i expected when i started by "just fixing a bug"... heee...
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4 thoughts on “I (heart) details.”
I share your viewpoint in regards to bland interfaces and really appreciate your efforts!
Responder
We make it for you all
Responder
So grateful for you coming back to Oxygen, and bringing your eye to design and detail with it. Can’t wait to have the best theme ever return fully!
Responder
Thank you so much for the caring 😊
Responder
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