Icons are incredibly important in UI/UX design. Icon design can make or break the usability of a project and thus understanding icon design is integral to creating a successful project. Icons are universal, and should be understandable regardless of language or cultural barriers, making them one of the most powerful forms of communication found in today’s society. The idea of icons can be seen as far back as early mans cave paintings, when simplistic figures and shapes were used to convey information. Today, icons are everywhere and had years of development throughout various types of projects leading to the idea of an icon we are familiar with today.
Otl Aicher was a German graphic designer and typographer best known for his pictographical icon work. Most notably, Aicher designed the icon set for the 1972 Summer Olympic. With the wide variety of languages spoken by attendants at the Olympics, icons which represented the games being played were essential at making navigating the games accessible to all attendants. Aicher’s icons abided by a strict grid, and utilised lines of consistent thickness and geometric forms to create an icon set which was visually harmonious and effective at informing the users. I personally love Aicher’s designs, they are so clear at showing a particular event while also being incredibly visually pleasing. It’s a amazing to me just how simple some of Aicher’s designers are and yet they are still incredibly effective at what they are doing.
Susan Kare is an American graphic designer who is known for her work on the icons for the Macintosh computer in 1984. Prior to the Macintosh, computers were seen as out of reach and confusing to the general public, so creating an inviting and helpful icon set was going to be essential to the Macintosh’s success. Kare’s icons are much more friendly and characteristic compared to the likes of Aicher’s, which helped new users more easily understand the Macintosh user interface and engage more with the system. Kare’s icons are extremely illustrative and detailed for the time, and is a great example of using skeuomorphic design to create an icon set. Skeuomorphism is essentially the use of old visual elements to aid in the explanation of what something new does. Skeuomorphism is really useful for creating easy to understand and inviting User Interfaces, which I think Kare understood and utilised to great success in the Macintosh Icons. What’s amazing to me is that the influence of this icon set can still be seen today, which I think shows Kare’s ability to design timelessly. I really love the quirkiness of these icons and the fact they are made using limited black and white pixels is incredible to me.
Bonnie Kate Wolf is an icon designer who has worked with variety of notable clients to create simple yet effective icon sets. I really like Wolf’s work, her simple but bold style works well at creating clear and understandable icons, but my favourite part of her work is her visual cohesion. While not necessarily the most unique or stylistic icons, her icons are extremely effective at looking like they are from the same set, which is really important when it comes to creating visual harmony. I really like how Wolf’s icons manage to be visually neutral in terms of overall personality, but do manage to have small amount of characteristics which overall make her sets friendly, but not in an overpowering way. I find her line weights and shapes to be extremely satisfying to look at which adds to the effectiveness of her icons along with often geometric shapes used. Overall, I really like Wolf’s icons and find her style to balance the perfect amount of friendliness and professionalism.
This was a really interesting read and definitely helped me realise how to go about creating an icon set, which initially seemed like quite a daunting task. I found it interesting how the guide strongly advised to work to a certain size, but doesn't necessarily recommend using grids or any other structural aspects, which was surprising to me but definitely makes sense considering the wide variety of styles of icons. I also found it particularly interesting to read because of the Master Apprentice exercises I am also doing at the moment, as recreating the icons while now having a better knowledge in designing from scratch has made recreating the icons easier and I’ve been seeing connections to the points in this guide through the shapes and forms used in the icons I am recreating.
It’s been really interesting seeing how iconography has evolved through time. While I’ve looked at icons that have been hand drawn, pixel drawn, and vector drawn, there are major similarities between the icon sets which is amazing considering the 50 year time scale I’ve looked at. Looking at the Icon Design Guide has been really useful at giving me a basis to design my own icons and will be really helpful in this modules projects.