Alternative icon for Department Stores

[Jotam]

I find the icon for department stores quite hard to distinguish, specially when it comes to the smallest size (14x14). I would therefore like to suggest an alternative:

[matthijsmelissen]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I wonder though if it might be confused with dollar stores?

For ATMs we got rid of the dollar sign because it only really makes sense for countries in witch dollars are the currency. Do we want to reintroduce it here?

[jojo4u]

I would not like to reintroduce them.

[Jotam]

I see the problem. One option would of course be to just use a plain shopping bag, like this:

If we want any kind of symbol, another idea would be to use "&". I not only reminds of a typical label print on shopping bags, it also stands for all those things that can be found in a department store: clothes & houseware & electronics & ... & ...

[kocio-pl]

Hm, nice hack with "&"!

[Jotam]

Thanks, Kocio. I'm glad you like it.

[HolgerJeromin]

IIRC a plain bag is used in hot style for generic shops.

[kocio-pl]

Nope, they use plain basket: https://github.com/hotosm/HDM-CartoCSS/blob/master/icons/poi/shop-18.png

The closest thing to this is bag with numbers we use for for variety store: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/master/symbols/variety_store-14.svg

but I still like the "& bag" idea.

[Jotam]

In this case, should we rather use the same shopping bag as for "variety store"? Like this: Or would you prefer to have a different shape for the bag? Like the one I suggested?

[nebulon42]

Refreshing the department store icon is definitely necessary, thanks for the initiative. I also think the dollar sign is not best suited but the & or something else might work. At the bigger scale I like your first bag shape better, but it all depends on how it looks at 14px. Are you able to provide some rendering previews?

[Jotam]

Like a link to the SVG? Or would you want me to create a 14px version and paste it in here? The latter is this:

[nebulon42]

@Jotam no, I mean creating actual map previews. This would require that you have an development environment set up. Do you plan to also provide an implementation?

From seeing your 14px version I would suggest to maybe emphasise the handle a bit more and also make the difference in width between top and bottom of the bag a bit larger.

[Jotam]

I don't have an development environment, sorry. This is my first contribution here, because someone encouraged me to throw in my creative skills. So for a start, I'm focused on the art work side and will need some guidance from this community. I will try out your design suggestions and get back here later.

[nebulon42]

Right, I guess everybody here is happy to help you getting started. The reason why I brought this up is that the actual rendering on the map might influence your design decisions.

[kocio-pl]

This is my first contribution here, because someone encouraged me to throw in my creative skills.

That "someone" was me. =}

What operating system do you use? We have detailed instructions for Ubuntu 14.04: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/657#issuecomment-121279334. I have not tried it with a fresh 16.04 version, but it still works after the system upgrade.

The only big difference is I no longer use TileMill for rendering, which is a legacy editor - after I have switched to 64-bit system, I have also switched to Kosmtik, which requires 64-bit architecture IIRC:

https://github.com/kosmtik/kosmtik

[matkoniecz]

I have not tried it with a fresh 16.04 version

The known problem is that TileMill (abandoned by MapBox is no longer available on 16. I also replaced it by Kosmtik)

In case of any additional problems - please, report them (during fresh 16 install I run only into already fixed #2200). Step-by-step instruction for Kosmtik installation on fresh system (or confirmation that installation instructions provided by Kosmtik are good) also would be welcomed.

[kocio-pl]

@Jotam How the things with your development environment are going, do you need some help?

Could you provide a link to SVG icon? I would be happy to test how it looks on the map.

[Jotam]

I'm very sorry for the delay. But I'm in the process of moving houses right now and can't give a lot of time to this. I can, however, give you a link to two version of the icon:

http://roeskamp.de/osm/ds_01.svg http://roeskamp.de/osm/ds_02.svg

The first one is the original icon which I proposed here. The second one has a stronger handle (as suggested) and uses a different font type for the "&" sign. Thanks for helping out with testing, kocio! I shall be fully operational again in 4-5 weeks. But let me know in between what you think. I'm sure I can always do a little design tweaking.

PS: Concerning my OS, I use a Ubuntu-based Linux distro.

[kocio-pl]

I was just wondering if you're dealing with some problems we could help you, but in this case we probably couldn't. ;-)

Warsaw (z19): 1) ds_01.svg 2) ds_02.svg

[Jotam]

The first one seems to work a lot better, imho. What do the rest of you think?

[HolgerJeromin]

Yes, on my phone the first seems better