Icon Designers & Illustrators

Paul Elliman

Paul Elliman is a renowned British graphic designer and artist who is often recognised for creating the typeface Found Fount which was a typeface designed from real-world, industrial materials and shapes to create letterforms. The typeface utilises objects within the real-world that replicate letterforms and the shape of certain characters within the alphabet, when Paul Elliman was designing the typeface he made sure that each letterform was individual and no single letterform was repeated more than once. His work has been featured in a number of museums and art galleries around the world in London, New York, Switzerland and South Korea including some of the most recognised establishments like the Tate Modern Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).^[1]

I have included an example of the Found Fount typeface designed by Paul Elliman below.

 

 

Olly Moss

Olly Moss was an illustrator that we had previously looked at in our lecture last week, Olly Moss is a British graphic designer and illustrator used in London, England who is well know for his redesigns of movie poster. His portfolio features a wide variety of projects from poster design to video-game graphics and visuals having designed movie posters and digital book covers for brands like Star Wars and Harry Potter in addition to being the lead designer on the video-game project FireWatch, which was recognised by its graphic visuals and vibrant colours.^[2] His design style is extremely interesting as his use of double exposure and silhouettes in his illustrations create a sense of depth, I also noticed that in the designs of the FireWatch landscapes that he creates atmosphere by using lighter colours for the background of the image and darker colours for the foreground of the image.

I have included some of Olly Moss’ work below to illustrate his design style and some of the projects he has worked on throughout his career.

 

 

 

Inga Hampton

Inga Hampton is a former student who studied Interaction Design at Ulster University, originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland Inga Hampton is a product designer, illustrator and video-game designer. After graduating from Ulster University Inga went on to work as a product designer and illusrator for Deloitte Digital and now works as a product designer for Reddit.^[3] Her portfolio consists of a variety of illustrations and animations that seem to have some connection with the work of Olly Moss and how he designed the video-game graphics for FireWatch, this work could have inspired Inga Hampton to create 2D video-game graphics.

I have included some of Inga Hampton’s work below to demonstrate her illustrative design style.

 

 

 

Mikael Gustafsson

Mikael Gustafsson is a Swedish graphic designer and illustrator based in Stockholm, Sweden. Mikael’s work primarily focuses on digital environment design where he illustrates digital landscapes, it was difficult to find information on Mikael Gustafsson other than his social media profiles but what I found was he usually works as a freelance designer and illustrator but is currently doing work for FJRD on the video game Among Trees where he’s working as an illustrator designing landscapes and visual graphics for the game.^[4] I personally love the style of illustrations Mikael Gustafsson, Inga Hampton and Olly Moss create as it bridges my love for landscape photography and graphic design, I find it interesting how they create a sense of depth and atmosphere through different shades of colour in addition to replicating certain camera techniques and effects like aperture, long exposure and double exposure.

I have included some of Mikael Gustafsson’s work below.

 

 

 

Harry Nesbitt

Harry Nesbitt is an award-winning British graphic designer, digital artist and game developer who is best know for his work on creating and developing Alto’s Adventure which was a snowboarding game featuring graphic alpine landscapes, his work extended into Alto’s Odyssey which was the sequel to Alto’s Adventure and went on to win a number of awards. Harry Nesbitt has recently founded a new independent game studio Calle Land & Sea where he will place his focus own designing graphics and visual components for video games.^[5]

I have included some of Harry Nesbitt’s work below to demonstrate his illustrative design style.

 

 

 

Aaron McAlinden

Aaron McAlinden is a UI/UX designer and illustrator from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is currently working as a UI/UX designer for Aflac Northern Ireland but his work extends beyond the bounds of just designing digital applications, while he focuses on designing user-interfaces and enhancing user-experiences during his day job Aaron McAlinden has a passion for illustration, branding and logo design which he dedicates his free time to. His portfolio also includes iconography and icon design where he has created a series of icons that can be used in digital applications and user-interfaces.^[6] I really like the style of icon designs created by Aaron McAlinden as they are extremely minimalistic but still convey a specific message or meaning which is their intended purpose, his style of line drawing is extremely clean in addition to the visual consistency between each individual icon.

I have included some of Aaron McAlinden’s work below.

 

 

 

Geri Coady

Geri Coady is a Canadian graphic designer and illustrator who primarily does freelance work within the graphic design industry, its clear from her work that she enjoys working with colour and while the majority of Geri Coady’s portfolio is illustration based she also has a passion for photography. Geri Coady has worked with a number of brands and companies over the years and was voted Designer of the Year in Net Magazine in 2014.^[7] I noticed that Geri Coady has some illustration and design courses available on SkillShare where she teaches different methods and techniques in illustration and design.

I have included some of Geri Coady’s work below.

 

 

 

Kyle Tezak

Kyle Tezak is an American graphic designer and illustrator from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kyle Tezak’s portfolio features a variety of different projects ranging from branding and logo design to illustration and icon design, his work also extends into product design and editorial illustrations for magazines and print publications. Kyle Tezak is often recognised for his work on iconography and designing icon sets, most notably his Four Icon Challenge series where he aims to create a set of 4 icons based on a certain topic or theme, I noticed that his icon designs are mainly based around lines and basic geometric shapes and hold a certain level of simplicity but he also included colour within his icon designs to help fit the theme of the icon set.^[8]

I have included some of Kyle Tezak’s Four Icon Challenge icon designs below.

 

 

 

 

The Olympic Games Icons

The icon set designed for the Olympic Games is possibly the most iconic series of pictogram in history and probably the most recognisable icon set in the world having inspired many pictograms that we see today like toilet signs for women and men. The icons were first seen in the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964 and were designed to represent each individual sport within the Olympic Games, the icons were developed throughout the years as the games started to develop and more sports were added to the list. The most recognisable change was designed by Otl Aicher, who we had looked at previously in our IXD102 module, where he designed the icon set and pictograms for the 1972 Olympic Games based in Munich, Germany.^[9]

I have included a few of the Olympic Icons below.

 

 

 

Susan Kare

Susan Kare is an American graphic designer and digital artist who is known for designing the first edition of the Apple Macintosh icon set, she is widely recognised as the creator of the ‘Macintosh Smile’ and is often considered to be a pioneer of pixel art within the graphic design industry. She began to build a reputation when she created the icon set for the Apple Mac from 1983 to 1986 and began to extend her portfolio by working with some of the biggest brands in the world today such as IBM, Sony, Facebook (Meta), Pinterest and Microsoft along with many others.^[10] Her work has inspired a number of artists and designers over the past few decades in addition to the recent emergence of the NFT market where some NFT designers create pixel art of digital characters.

I have included some of Susan Kare’s work below.

 

 

 

The Noun Project

The Noun Project is a comprehensive icon collection created in 2010 by founders Sofya Polyakov and Edward Boatman, their primary goal is to create the most diverse icon set in the world and aim to create a universal language that can be understood globally by communicating through icons and pictograms. The company has seen a massive amount of growth over there past decade and now have a community of designers and digital artists in over 120 countries around the world.^[11] I have looked into The Noun Project before as I have seen them being used in projects I like as well as getting shoutouts on social media, I think their icons are diverse which gives you a lot of options when it comes to choosing icons for your project but I think this also makes them lack a little in consistency, in my opinion there are better icon collections available on the market.

I have included some examples of the icons from The Noun Project icon collection below.

 

 

 

The Icon Handbook

The Icon Handbook is a book that was written by renowned graphic designer and iconographer, Jon Hicks, and published in 2012. The book is a detailed guide to the process and thinking behind creating icons and symbols as a form of communication and teaches you different methodologies for designing icons that convey a specific message.^[12] Jon Hicks is best known for his render of the Mozilla Firefox logo but he is also recognised for his work in designing icon sets, most notably the icon set he designed for Spotify which is still being used to this day. His knowledge has helped a number of designers gain an understanding on designing icons as a form of communication.

I have included an image of The Icon Handbook by Jon Hicks below.

 

 

Vic Bell

Vic Bell its another graphic designer and illustrator that we looked at last week, her portfolio consists of variety of projects from brand identity and logo design to illustration and icon design having worked with brands like Burberry, Uber, Blink and a handful of other companies. Her illustration work is often recognised by its use of colour and geometric shapes demonstrating some form of simplicity, this carries through into her icon designs where she primarily focuses on line drawings to communicate the specific message of a pictogram.^[13]

I have included some of Vic Bell’s work below.

 

 

 

Tim Van Damme

Tim Van Damme is a graphic designer, product designer and software designer currently based in Brussels, Germany. His portfolio has a wide variety of projects and he has worked with a handful of well-known brands and companies throughout his career such as Dropbox, Instagram, Gowalla and Abstract in addition to starting his own company MVKB who design computer hardware like keyboards.^[14] MVKB really inspired me when I came across their website and browsed through their current product selection, I thought the design of these keyboards were extremely modern and make a visual statement which is common in some of my favourite brands like Off-White, Nike and Heron Preston where they use bright, high-vis style colours to grab attention.

I have included some of Tim Van Damme’s product design work for MVKB below.

 

 

 

 

Sebastiaan de With

Sebastiaan de With is a well known graphic designer, illustrator and icon designer from the Netherlands, his portfolio features a wide variety of projects including brand identity, icon design, illustration and photography but his main focus is on blending his passion for photography and graphic design by creating digital camera applications. Sebastiaan de With is currently working for Halide and Spectre on their mobile applications where he’s assisting with the icon design and user-interface design.^[15]

I have included some of Sebastiaan de With’s work below.

 

 

 

Justas Galaburda

Justas Galaburda is a renowned graphic designer, illustrator and iconographer, often recognised for his work in icon design. Initially born in Lithuania, Justas Galaburda has gained a huge reputation within the design industry over the past few years, his portfolio features a wide variety of projects including brand design and logo design, illustration, graphic design and UI design along with other projects. Justas went on to create the company Icon Utopia where he places his focus on icon design and communication through pictograms and symbols, he is currently working alongside Oberlo who work closes with a lot of dropshipping companies to ship and sell products globally.^[16]

I have included some of Justas Galaburda’s illustration work and icon designs below.

 

 

 

 

Matt Yow

Matt Yow is a renowned brand designer and graphic designer based in the United States of America, he founded the specialised brand design agency Twin Forrest in 2014 having worked with some of the most recognised companies like Adobe, Microsoft, Chick-fill-a, HP Printers and the Monotype Type Foundry. Matt Yow has worked on a vast number of projects throughout his career and has worked for a number of different companies, he is currently working as a designer at the company, Census.^[17]

I have included some of Matt Yow’s work below.

 

 

 

Adam Whitnall

Adam Whitnall is a British graphic designer and illustrator based in London, England currently working as a senior UI/UX designer. His portfolio features a vast amount fo projects including user-interface design for web and mobile applications, game design, prints, branding, product design, motion graphics and animation alongside numerous other design mediums, this huge amount of work would make Adam Whitnall an extremely multi-disciplined graphic designer having knowledge on a variety of different project types and styles. Adam Whitnall has worked with a number of brands and companies throughout his career and has gained over 10 years experience within the field, his main applications in his toolbox are the Adobe Creative Cloud applications like Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator alongside a handful of other applications.^[18]

I have included some of Adam Whitcart’s work below.

 

 

 

 

 

---

Task – Master Apprentice

During our lecture we were asked to begin work on another Master Apprentice task to allow us to gain an insight into how illustrations are made, for this task we were asked to recreate a part of a cityscape illustration. I found this task extremely interesting yet challenging at the same time, over the years of designing I haven’t explored the Pen Tool in detail as I have mainly focused on basic shapes and typography in addition to textures and images to create my designs so it was good to get out of my comfort zone.

I have included the reference illustrations below to give you an idea on what we needed to recreate.

 

 

 

I wanted to take 2 different approaches to these illustrations as some were basic line drawings and others were block colour illustrations, this allowed me to figure out what approach I prefer the most and how time efficient each method was. Personally I preferred creating the block colour illustration as it had a sense of depth through the use of colour but I was actually designed on a two-dimensional plane, the varying colours gave the illusion of a three-dimensional space which I found interesting. I wanted to use a number of different techniques to allow me to replicate the illustrations above, in the London Cityscape Illustration there was some masking happening on the legs of the ferris wheel which also gave a sense of depth, I have explored masking before but this was a good refresher for me especially with vector shapes as opposed to masking images and typography. I think when it comes to designing my cityscape illustrations I want to consider certain elements like perspectives, shadows and highlights to allow me to create a sense of depth within my designs.

I have included some images of the illustrations I created below.

 

 

 

---

References & Sources

1. Wikipedia. 2022. Paul Elliman – Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Elliman. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
2. Wikipedia. 2022. Olly Moss – Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olly_Moss. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
3. Inga Hampton. 2022. Inga Hampton | Designer. [ONLINE] Available at: https://ingahampton.com. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
4. Twitter. 2022. No page title. [ONLINE] Available at: https://twitter.com/mklgustafsson?lang=en. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
5. Harry Nesbitt. 2022. Harry Nesbitt – Artist and Game Developer. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.harrynesbitt.com. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
6. Dribbble. 2022. Dribbble – Discover the World’s Top Designers & Creative Professionals. [ONLINE] Available at: https://dribbble.com/AaronMcAlinden/about. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
7. Dribbble. 2022. Dribbble – Discover the World’s Top Designers & Creative Professionals. [ONLINE] Available at: https://dribbble.com/hellogeri/about. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
8. Kyle Tezak | Information. 2022. Kyle Tezak | Information. [ONLINE] Available at: http://kyletezak.com/information.html. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
9. Media Made Great. 2022. Olympic Pictograms: Design through History – Media Made Great. [ONLINE] Available at: https://mediamadegreat.com/olympic-pictograms/. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
10. Wikipedia. 2022. Susan Kare – Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
11. Free Icons for Everything – Noun Project. 2022. Free Icons for Everything – Noun Project. [ONLINE] Available at: https://thenounproject.com/about/. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
12. Hicks.design. 2022. The Icon Handbook – Hicks.design. [ONLINE] Available at: https://hicks.design/shop/the-icon-handbook. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
13. Vic Bell. 2022. Vic Bell. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.vicbell.co.uk. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
14. Tim Van Damme. 2022. Tim Van Damme. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.timvandamme.com. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
15. Dribbble. 2022. Dribbble – Discover the World’s Top Designers & Creative Professionals. [ONLINE] Available at: https://dribbble.com/sdw/about. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
16. Dribbble. 2022. Dribbble – Discover the World’s Top Designers & Creative Professionals. [ONLINE] Available at: https://dribbble.com/jucha/about. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
17. Matt Yow . 2022. Matt Yow . [ONLINE] Available at: https://mattyow.com. [Accessed 13 February 2022].
18. Adam Whitnall | Find out more about my history and training. 2022. Adam Whitnall | Find out more about my history and training. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.adamwhitnall.co.uk/about. [Accessed 13 February 2022].