Question: Is there a way to turn off the boxes around the icons in Unity?

Clarification: I do **not** mean the backlight color -- there are plenty of questions about turning *that* off. I want the icons, and just the icons, to appear in the Unity bar, without any lights and shadows and borders. Can this be done?

Answer: 
I scripted the removal of the boxes around the applications and the one around the Ubuntu button (for 12.04):

```
cd /usr/share/unity/5
wget -O transparent54.png "https://i.stack.imgur.com/MiFpK.png"
wget -O transparent62.png "https://i.stack.imgur.com/0NvP0.png"

for name in squircle_shine squircle_edge squircle_base squircle_base_selected launcher_icon_back launcher_icon_edge launcher_icon_shine
do 
    sudo mv ${name}_54.png ${name}_54.ori.png \
        && sudo ln -s transparent54.png ${name}_54.png
done

for name in squircle_shadow launcher_icon_glow launcher_icon_shadow
do 
    sudo mv ${name}_62.png ${name}_62.ori.png \
        && sudo ln -s transparent62.png ${name}_62.png
done

```

Then to restart Unity, press `Alt`+`F2` and run `setsid unity`. The result looks much cleaner to me. 

Before: 

[![with boxes](https://i.stack.imgur.com/E2MJ4.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/E2MJ4.png)

After:

[![without boxes](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VAVV0.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VAVV0.png)

To switch back:

```
cd /usr/share/unity/5
for name in squircle_shine squircle_edge squircle_base squircle_base_selected launcher_icon_back launcher_icon_edge launcher_icon_shine
do 
    sudo rm ${name}_54.png \
        && sudo mv ${name}_54.ori.png ${name}_54.png
done

for name in squircle_shadow launcher_icon_glow launcher_icon_shadow
do 
    sudo rm ${name}_62.png \
        && sudo mv ${name}_62.ori.png ${name}_62.png
done

```
To do this locally, we don't have to modify the files in the folder /usr/share/unity/. Instead we can just copy these files in the gtk theme folder under a folder "unity" that you create. This will override the files in /usr/share/unity/ and also, this way, a system update will not remove the change.
But I have a different question. After removing the border, it looks like there is too much space between the icons and also between the icons and the border of the launcher. Is there a way to reduce the spacing inbetween?