iOS 7 Newsstand app icon (Beta 1)
Apple’s newly announced iOS 7 brings a long-rumored “flatness” to the homescreen. The most visible typographic change is a lighter and more tightly spaced Neue Helvetica, a move that I’ll cover in more detail later. But first, a couple bits that noticeably depart from Helvetication: the Camera app and the Newsstand icon. The new look for Apple’s magazine and newspaper app emulates a group of publications, each with nameplates, making this icon stand out from the simple pictograms of the other system apps.
I cannot positively identify the “News” type, but it appears to be based on Friedrich Bauer’s 19th-century Gotisch. The Apple designers didn’t seem to be happy with the unfamiliar Fraktur ‘w’: they replaced it with a rotated ‘m’ — a thing they are known to do.
Other than the Calendar, Clock, and Maps apps, Newsstand is the only icon with type and a consipucuous showcase of multiple typefaces.
The icon as shown in the iOS 7 intro video, along with the underlying design grid for all the app icons.
6 Comments on “iOS 7 Newsstand app icon (Beta 1)”
And a conspicuous showcase of trim sizes, too?
I actually like this icon a lot, but the rotated m is ridiculous. Boo.
I love it, too.
The Art rag looks like an old simple graphic icon from OS 7.
Can’t wait to read a bit about Helvetica, because despite its glamour, I’m thinking its a bit hard to read in nearly every case.
Sadly (to those of us who liked the type), Apple has already revised the logo in the latest developer’s version. Perhaps they felt the type was too divergent from the overarching style of iOS 7, or maybe they want to avoid language-specific icons.
Thanks to Jürgen Siebert for the alert and screenshot.
Apple has still only released Beta 1. The above screenshot must be the German localization. In the U.S., the Newsstand icon looks like the one with type as shown in the original post.
See also: Nicolas Burrows’ “Start your own damn school!” illustration.