The phrase
Google is getting better at design faster than Apple is getting better at services[1]
Is an old one, but is becoming more and more true as time goes on. Google now has what amounts to a HIG, which is (IMO) both well done and visually appealing[2].
Google's design team (well, one of them) has now released the Google Visual Assets Guidelines.
Google’s brand is shaped in many ways; one of which is through maintaining the visual coherence of our visual assets.
In January 2012, we began creating this solid, yet flexible, foundation that will help Google’s designers and vendors to produce high quality work that helps strengthen Google’s identity.
What you see here is a visual summary of the guidelines, divided into two Behance projects:
Part 1: Product icons and logo lockups
Part 2: User interface icons and Illustrations
These guides really go into depth on spacing, colour usage, shadows, icon sizes and spacing, the use of geometric shapes in icons - there is a crazy amount of detail here.
Great to see Android becoming more documented and consistent. Both the asset guidelines and the design guidelines are well worth a read.
update: And Apple has released the HIG for iOS7, and a UIKit Catalog which is a lot better than the old one.
From either Patrick Gibson or Tom Dale ↩︎
I find the Apple HIG, while complete, to be visually jarring. Or rather, not very visual at all. ↩︎
