Icon Gallery '97

Project intro

Icon Gallery '97 is a Mac app that revives over 2,000 hand-crafted vintage icons from 1997 — and its entire codebase was written by Claude without the author writing a single line of code. ZDNET senior contributing editor David Gewirtz resurrected the icon library from his mid-90s boxed Mac product Icon Gallery, then vibe-coded a modern browser for it: search, recolor icons to match brand colors, create collections and favorites, iCloud sync, and one-tap export to Slack emojis. Gewirtz is refreshingly honest about what vibe coding actually looked like: "Lest anyone imply that vibe coding involves issuing one 'Make me an app,' command, let me dissuade you of that notion. I gave Claude Code 502 individual directives in the four days that I actively interacted with it." He used Claude Desktop to talk strategy and Claude Code to build the Mac app; even the product name — Icon Gallery '97: 30th Anniversary Edition — was Claude's recommendation. Timeline: idea on Sunday Sept 20, app submitted to Apple on Sept 27, accepted four days later and went live on the Mac App Store in 11 days total. It is a paid app (free with 100 icons, one-time purchase to unlock all 2,000+, no subscription), listed under Graphics & Design. A rare, fully documented case of a professional journalist shipping a commercial Mac app with zero hand-written code.