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I'd go with the a) solution. I don't think readability would suffer too much if a good outline/shadow effect (better than in the mockup) is applied so that a high level of contrast would be achieved.

Would it be good enough if the text is presented as a mouse-over effect, kind of like a speech bubble but with no delay, transparent background and the text centered horizontally at the center of the (bottom part of the) icon, allowing it to flow freely over icons to the left/right if necessary? This would also make it possible to use longer text. Downside is that the icon text isn't always visible and that you would have to slide the mouse pointer over the icon to see the text, but as long as the text is only supposed to function as an explanatory supplement to the graphical icon, then maybe this is good enough?

Wouldn't help if you want text-only buttons (which is nice IMHO), but I think those only makes sense in a vertical panel anyway.


[ Edited by takemehomegrandma 16.03.2014 - 20:48 ]