When I faced the challenge of drawing an app icon for the first time, I had a lot of questions. I found answers on some of them only after a couple of completed projects. I decided to write this article to help the same beginners as I was, but I hope that experienced designers will find it useful too. Well, let’s get started! Why every app needs an iconĪn app icon is a unique image added for every mobile application. It’s the first users see when they find an app on the App Store and Google Play.
At this stage, the user decides if he wants to find more about an app if not - he scrolls further. A good icon generates interest, provide confidence, assure the user that an app might be useful for him. It confuses and casts doubt on the benefit of an app.Īt the same time, a bad icon does twice as much, but the other way around. When the user installs an app, the icon’s goal changes. Now it assists in the search for the app on the Home screen among other icons. There are a lot of articles on the topic and most of them relate to Paul Rand’s design principles. And that’s not surprising! An app icon is a piece of branding. However, it’s not a logo.Ī logo and an app icon have different goals, ways of using and requirements respectively. It doesn’t mean a logo can’t overlap with an icon. Not at all! Popular applications often use logos in icons: Twitter, Medium, Reddit and others. They are a number of aspects that we need to take into account. Let me tell you about them by drawing on the experience and using beautiful headlines. That’s the point, and the user can’t stretch it to examine.
#Android app icon resize android
IOS (on the left) and Android (on the right) icons of the same apps Look, how small app icons are in Settings! Therefore, it’s important that an icon maintains its legibility regardless of size. It doesn’t mean you need to draw different app icons rather, big differences will reduce app recognition. Sometimes it’s enough to adjust the size, but in some cases it’s better to make more changes. Phew! That’s what we should pay attention to when developing an app icon.
#Android app icon resize how to
Now it’s time to create! Of course, if you don’t have even more questions along the way… What size a canvas should be? How to use grids? How to export an icon? It’s time to go deep into the technical part and find answers. There is much useful information in the iOS Human Interface Guidelines, but we’ll focus on the App Icon section where Apple describes technical requirements and makes recommendations on a design. We’ll follow the path of creating icons and get to the bottom of this. I use Sketch, but any other graphics editor will work too. There are many templates for creating icons, but we won’t use them for now. Let’s say we already studied the market, identified the idea, perhaps, even made a sketch by hand. And of course, created a new document in the editor. In iOS, an icon can be found in different sizes from 40px × 40px to 1024px × 1024px. Because it’s always easier to reduce the image size, we’ll create a larger canvas. Designers who work in Sketch can cheat and create twice smaller canvas (512px × 512px) and increase it later on export.
#Android app icon resize download
You can download it, find in templates and even draw. Grids help to maintain unity and integrity of the composition, control sizes and spacing. Try to place the main object within a large circle.
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