Mahira came in and sat down heavily.
“I am not really enjoying this part. Don’t know how you can begin to concentrate on anything after that,” she complained.
“I feel a little relieved,” Dan said, “I was honestly worried for a number of days.”
“I’m glad to have something real to focus on other than the death toll and what we’re all going to do afterwards. The economy is due to be dealt quite a blow if the quarantine carries on. The landscape is shifting beneath our feet as we speak,” she said. The door opened again, and Harlan came in with a tray of coffee and pastry from the cafeteria.
“I put this together myself. I just want you all to know how happy I am that we
can work like this, as long as quarantine is maintained.
The original slideshow of images composed of Trace Liinder’s concepts of the iGo Icon history played on the monitor behind Harlan as he sat down to get out the way.
“I really like what Trace tried to conserve in his concepts. It’s just that they all give me a feeling that I’m just looking at any other current icon that iGo has in use. Not newer, better or faster.”
“This is why I suggest a completely outlandish, super different color while maintaining all the other recognizable graphic shapes,” Mahira said, affirming her initial impression.
“There was once a job, I forget the client. He spoke about radically different ideas. He wanted a black Icon with black and off black graphics, you may know who I’m talking about. He’s got that whole hipster Kerouac thing going. I gave him his edgy App Icon. I was into it. Did my best. His user demographics killed it. Older people, they couldn’t handle it. If they had a dark home screen background, forget about it.”
“I wouldn’t suggest black on black,” Mahira said.” Ever.”
“Aren’t we all, you know, after yesterday, aren’t we all set on the idea that the three colors in the original icon are so strongly associated with the company’s brand that we’re to keep ‘em,” Dan said, carefully.
“Trace has come up with some truly clever variations on the original, retaining those three colors and using them in different proportions to one another, giving one or two transparency even but they all seem more a variation than anything truly new or exciting,” Harlan concluded.
“What I was saying, I still believe. I think you need to keep the colors. Just present them differently,” Tory said.
“That is really what Trace has been doing,” Harlen said gently.
“No, no, no. He presents the colors the same way, just in different shapes,” Tory clarified.
“What do you mean?” Harlan asked brows arched in interest
“Perception is hazy. No not hazy, I mean fluid, right? World in motion. What our eyes see registers in our minds even when the images or colors are glimpsed for an instant. You don’t see or really look for the Cobalt blue E of Explorer, just that splotch of color,” Tory suggested.
She rose from her seat to approach the screen as Trace Linder’s concepts faded from one to the next.
“What if instead of altering the graphics significantly then adding the colors in these separate little fields on the globe layer, the three significant hues are a nebulous presence, a blurred intersection of color, the way they are represented when you’re asked to choose a color in program, or if you could make a gradient of the three colors?” she asked.
The conference room was silent. Harlan’s mouth hung open a moment before he was ready to say anything.
“A gradient. A gradient,” he repeated, clearly thinking.
“Yes. A gradient,” Tory affirmed.
“Let’s take a break, gang. Let’s meet back here in a couple of hours,” Harlan said, looking at Tory as Mahira quickly got up and left the room.
***
Upstairs in his office, Harlan played with differing gradient fills until he found one he thought was representative of the brand’s colors by proportion.
He played around superimposing a transparent graphic layer of the Icon on top of the gradient and moving it about.
The idea seemed vital. It was new. It was out from left field and he loved it.
Excited, he paced the floor, hoping that he wasn’t being over enthusiastic about Tory’s idea because of how great he felt just to be in the room with her.
Certainly, the idea needed some refinement but there was time. He knew he could do it. He sat down and looked out over the city for an immeasurable period. Before rising commanding the Smart TV on.
“Replay security archive VS 1, Please,” Harlan requested.
The footage of Tory snapping pics in the auditorium played. In seeing her marvel at his design, he decided to let her do the entire iGo job on her own.
***
Anxious in the time she waited to return to the conference room, Tory sat down with her phone to check her messages while relaxing on the bed in her small suite. There were a couple from her mother, even though she spoke to her the previous evening.