Let’s nit pick shall we? This extremely insignificant part of our lives bares little stress but can be easily avoided. Once it tapped into one of my favourite games, I felt compelled to speak on the subject.
Anyone who’s ever used Photoshop has used a Drop Shadow, so why is it then so many won’t tinker with the settings? The default settings are awful — never to be used, heavy, over bearing shadows on an uninteresting angle. Let’s take a look:
Here’s the menus for Mirror’s Edge on PC, one of my favourite games.
Notice the art style is very stark. The design of the menus is echoed from the design of the game. Sparse whites with super saturated colours. The navigation items are made to stand off the background using a drop shadow. Cleverly enough the designer has opted for zero blur so the edges are sharp, like the edges of the navigation. As well as choosing a desaturated blue to match with the background graphic.
Now let’s look at the iPad port of the game.
Nooooo.gif! The designer here has looked at the previous game, selected Drop Shadow and pressed okay. Big, deep, blurry, black drop shadows poison the eye and stab at the heart of the original games’ art style. It could’ve been so beautiful, so easily avoided. But alas, ‘ruined’.
(Not really serious, the iPad port is actually pretty fun)
So please, kids, play with the drop shadow settings. They’re there for a reason.
Just say no.