On the Floor

Most designers have a little OCD in them, in one form or another. My OCD usually manifests itself while looking at UI elements, typefaces and icons. Today though, the unthinkable happened - I noticed a mistake in one of Apple's icons in OS X Lion! Wait, what? Apple, champion of usability, detail and design made a... mistake?!

Yup!

The error lies in the rendering of the Launchpad icon. While I do like the cute little rocket ship, I'm afraid that somebody at Apple seems to have looked over a small detail - the radial gradient. The gradient is supposed to represent a piece of lathe-turned metal, not unlike a volume knob on a vintage hi-fi, but I don't think it's supposed to appear over the rocket ship. To my eyes anyway, I think the rocket icon is mean to appear as if its been embossed into the metal surface and then painted gray. It looks like it should also be matte finish, but even if it were supposed to be glossy gray paint,  an angled highlight would have worked better than the continuation of the radial gradient from the metal. I can't think of any other reason for this, other than it being an oversight. 

Nonetheless, I've gone ahead and ammended this for you, Apple.