I designed a macOS developer tool for formatting JSON files, developed by Samuel Goodwin aka Roundwall Software.

Get it on the Mac App Store

Samuel approached me about another collaboration on a small Mac app, which would fit right in with the Apple developer ecosystem. Formatter would provide a simple drag and drop interface, as well as a QuickLook plugin and an Xcode extension for making unformatted JSON files human-readable.

To look great alongside Apple's apps, I set out to look for a real world (think: metal) tool, that would match the purpose of Formatter: to take a single resource and break it up into equal-sized chunks. A handle would be great, but not necessary. Eventually we found such a tool in the pasta maker.

For the final app icon I chose only the front part of the pasta maker, as the gaps between the strips of fettucine would begin to blend into each other when viewed on a smaller scale.

I first modelled one in blender to get a better feel for shading and the obligatory reflections, before I simplified it during vectorisation. We intentionally left out any reference to JSON in the icon and the dough's colour was also shifted to a trendy purple to make it stand out more on the store.

For more information, read the official announcement.