My opinion is that there are some nice designs here, but they all are over-complicated, they all contain too much detail, which prevents them from working as icons. Splash screens are a separate issue.
The diaphragm-in-the-water-drop icon above is a great idea. To make it work you would need to fatten up those lines (I’m thinking of making them triangular instead of rectangular), and perhaps change the shape of the water droplet to something more round, more comic, to reduce the vertical height. http://i.imgur.com/WsU6Pxw.png
The main difference is the specular highlights which are sharp on the old one and soft on the newer one, and that they go light->dark->light in the old one.
Imho, as a spectator, Morgins try is still the best (just my 5cents, not wanting to insult anyone). It has a simple, yet modern and very appealing look.
Yes, that one indeed. I also showed the icons to my girlfriend who’s working in graphic design ( and who I try to convert to foss tools;)) and she favored that one as well!
Personally, I like the last one the most, because of its simplicity and also the fact that it remains very readable at small sizes. For me, this is in some sense the “distilled” product of this brainstorming thread. I’m really grateful to all of you who have spent time to help me out with the photoflow icon!
@arctic: would you mind to share the SVG file, if existing?