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The Art Of The iOS Icon

200 points| muratmutlu | 14 years ago |mobileinc.co.uk | reply

67 comments

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[+] nanijoe|14 years ago|reply
One of those icons was designed for an app of mine : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bill-organizer-manage-track/i...

We (the designer and I) ultimately rejected it, because it just did not stand out at 57x57. As good as some of those icons look, you have to discipline yourself to view and evaluate them at 57x57, cos thats how the user is going to see them. Also bear in mind that the user will see them among a multitude of icons, so they have to stand out for more than just being pretty..

I am tempted to conclude that these pretty icons just don't matter as much as we think they do, and the most effective ones may well be those with a solid bloc of color (like the path icon), cos they are easier to make out on a crowded screen .

[+] ja27|14 years ago|reply
My first iOS app's icon was a single bold white letter on a green background with the default Apple gloss. It's still my best-seller and not once has anyone complained about the cheapness of the icon. It stands out better than icons I spent much more time on. I did eventually go back and rework the gloss so I like it better and added some texture for the big 512px versions, but it's still essentially a white letter on green background.
[+] dmix|14 years ago|reply
A lot of stuff on dribbble looks great on dribbble.

Doesn't always translate to real life where context is king.

[+] muratmutlu|14 years ago|reply
You can see many of the icons in their 57x57 size on this site, and even toggle between the different sizes

http://iicns.com/

[+] pantag|14 years ago|reply
that app of yours is getting some serious bashing... is the app new, or are they unfair reviews?
[+] awesomeo|14 years ago|reply
You hired Umar to work on your app design? I'm currently in talks with him to work on one of our apps. How is he as a designer. Would love to hear from someone who has worked with him
[+] jblow|14 years ago|reply
Cute site. It doesn't change the fact that the iOS icon standard is terrible, though. (It defeats the human visual system's attempts to recognize objects by silhouettes, which is why so many people take so long to find the icon they are looking for).
[+] gurkendoktor|14 years ago|reply
I wonder if the reason is that idiots will fill the whole available area anyway. Is Apple that afraid of bad designers?

Ony my HTC One X, PlayBook and Mac, the builtin icons are gorgeous and have interesting silhouettes. But if I look at any of the three attached App Stores, 3rd party vendors are desparate to fill the whole area with details.

The medicine category in the Mac App Store is a pretty good example of it. Most icon are either a solid block that will ruin your Dock's aesthetics, or a circle. I wish Apple would reject them all, but I can imagine the media response to that.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?f...

[+] 54mf|14 years ago|reply
It's not terrible. You're ignoring the human visual system's ability to recognize objects by color, shape, or pattern.
[+] esad|14 years ago|reply
The author of the article seem to think that a good iOS icon is a one that uses a perspective trick to produce a faux 3d effect. I'm not sure these are very usable when sized down to 57x57 pixels which is default iPhone icon size (double that for retina).
[+] templaedhel|14 years ago|reply
"Never underestimate the importance of a great app icon. It’s the first thing a user sees before downloading your app (I’ve downloaded apps in the past solely on the icon making the app seem interesting)."

I cannot stress the importance of this. I have payed money for apps over their free counterparts because the icon looks better. It's a bite sized preview of the experience I can expect to have with your whole app, and more often than not, the quality of the icon is directly correlated to the quality of the UI and UX as a whole.

[+] generateui|14 years ago|reply
Those icons are absolutely horrible. They are images, distracting the viewer by the amount of details. Icons should convey only the bare minimum of shape. The metaphor of the meaning should be captured, not the incredilous picture of a remotely possible parrallell.
[+] jyap|14 years ago|reply
The problem is most of those aren’t actually apps (are any of them?) and are not shown at actual iPhone size. Dribble isn't the app store.

The post may has well been titled 'Cool picograms in a 1024 pixel rounded square'.

[+] kurtvarner|14 years ago|reply
1) Put £500-800 of your budget aside

I think this is a gross underestimation of how much these designs would cost. Does anyone have any real data on the cost of iOS icon design?

[+] muratmutlu|14 years ago|reply
I've contacted several designers on that list, give or take exchange rates, you can expect to pay that.
[+] coryl|14 years ago|reply
Anyone willing to pay that much for an icon design either has deep pockets or a big commitment to good design. That is a lot of money for an icon.
[+] k-mcgrady|14 years ago|reply
I think it's a gross overestimation. There are plenty of good designers who will do work for a lot less than that. I had an entire iPad app design done for around $300 (icon, table background, custom table cells) and I recently got another design done for an app for $100 (icon, splash screen, custom tab bar backgrounds, custom nav bar backgrounds, custom table backgrounds).
[+] replicatorblog|14 years ago|reply
I love all these designs and follow many of the designers who created them on Dribbble. These are impressive aesthetic achievements, but I'm always surprised that none of these icons are for an app with decent sales. I don't think many, if any, of these are in the top 200 of their respective categories, but there are a number of horribly designed icons in most of the top 20's. I'm a designer and predisposed to nice designs, but always find it a shame that these great works don't get a larger audience.
[+] rudiger|14 years ago|reply
What do these actually look like on the iPhone at icon size?
[+] muratmutlu|14 years ago|reply
It varies, on Retina many look beautiful. Some of the icons shown in the post are only for iTunes which has a different, larger pixel size (512x512) to the one on the handset
[+] underwater|14 years ago|reply
I wondered about this too. The icons that use a pseudo-isomeric perspective may look strange next to a bunch of top down icons.
[+] hamey|14 years ago|reply
I understand the criticism about these highly-designed icons not being appropriate for low resolutions, but any decent designer will recreate them from scratch for different sizes so they still perform well.
[+] MaxGabriel|14 years ago|reply
Murat, are there any resources/insight you'd recommend for making app icons yourself?
[+] eswangren|14 years ago|reply
Just my $.02, and I realize this is anecdotal, but I don't give two craps what your icon looks like. If your app is good, I'll use it.
[+] kalleboo|14 years ago|reply
But will you find it? I don't care much how the apps I use look either, but when I'm scrolling through search results in the store, I'll skim right over the apps with cheap icons, because I'll presume they're poorly-made spamware (since generally, that's true).
[+] brianpan|14 years ago|reply
Another anecdote- I don't care how good your app is, if it doesn't look good, it looks like you don't care. I'll eventually get annoyed and stop using it.