What constitutes a good status icon set?

I was on MomCafe's site briefly last night and noticed her pretty new Themes by Design template, which had an interesting set of status icons. It was an intricate decoration, but I couldn't figure out at first glance which was the one for New Posts and which was the one for No New Posts. Did red indicate activity or tell the user to stop? I clicked on each forum (because who bothers to read dates?) and wondered if the average user would do the same. Maybe that set of status icons would get new users to go through more forums yet still indicate which was which to the familiar users. Could turn out to be fiendishly clever.

I've occasionally seen status icons with some sort of animation to indicate new posts, but I don't think a column full of animations will be effective at drawing the user's eye to the new posts; instead, I think it would just overwhelm them. I'm also not a big fan of making a grayed-out copy of the New Posts icon, as I think sometimes it doesn't look good with the rest of the template. I like to try and come up with things fitting with the type of forum that have an on-off state in real life; a toaster with and without toast popped up, or empty and full shopping bags.

What kind of status icon is your preference? Should it be glaringly obvious or blend in more?

 

Im prefer for them to blend in myself especially on a brand new forum, I prefer the difference between New and Old to be subtle as when a guest views a forum it seems it's all old. I think its different if you revisit.

 

I make em myself, I'd like to make em pretty! *-* No animation needed to attract or make users note that the posts are old or new.

 

Days long past (before I worked alongside andrew gallant on a board software) I was an animation freak. If it could be animated chances are there would be an animated included in any graphics such as forum status icons user status icons etc. Nowadays I reduce the opacity of the icons to distinguish between new and old posts. enough for the member to notice I remove the forum status icon legend on all my styles.I also place a little marker that distinguishes a new post. Like a tick, or some additional small icon to say that a new post has been made.

Andrew convinced me simplicity was key and more wasn't always better.