this thread about tasty-lookin' win2k/macOS9/beOS-era GUIs mentions that today's high DPI displays mean we can't simply return to that era, where every icon was a delicious little simcity building and every pixel was a big load-bearing statement. it reminded me how much the current feeling of being "stuck" in the current bland iOS-google-electron is due to, well, capitalist realism but also the ineffectiveness of computing's corporate masters at driving new visual and design languages. and folks, i think we're gonna have to figure it out on our own, by making a huge range of weird experimental probably-ugly stuff and seeing what shakes out.

Eylo 1.0.2 by Max Rudberg

APB White by Patricia Baron

Just Fur by Derek Gordon