This project challenged us to design 4 icons for mobile devices. It gave us four options for each icon:
1. Bicycle, truck, airplane, car, boat
2. School, church, bank, library, museum
3. Fish, bird, squirrel, dog, elephant
4. Book, telephone, computer, camera, pencil
2. School, church, bank, library, museum
3. Fish, bird, squirrel, dog, elephant
4. Book, telephone, computer, camera, pencil
I initially had some grand plans involving cruise ships, elephant ears, and museum statues before realizing I was vastly overthinking and the point of the project was simplification. In the end I chose boat, museum, bird, and pencil.
After a lot of thinking and sketching, it became clear to me that the best idea for a recognizable boat would be a simple triangle sailboat.
I initially considered a much more detailed drawing of an owl for the bird icon, but ended up looking through a lot of photo examples and thought it might be fun to have a recognizable bird head and a bunch of feathers to fill the rest of the square.
I originally wanted to do some sort of statue for museum, but realized how difficult that might be to interpret from afar, so I chose a simple classical architecture building. Unfortunately I later realized that it could very easily be a bank, too. You live and you learn.
Although the pencil seems very simple, it took me a long time to decide the shape I wanted, how realistic it would be, and how I wanted to make the drawn "line" This is the image that made me decide to work with dark space instead of using black on white for the drawings.
Preliminary Work
Examples of (mostly abandoned) icon drafts
Initial brainstorming thumbnails
