My icon set

Preparing to design

I wanted to make sure I will not make any mistakes whilst designing my icons, I read through the system icons information on material design website and I have taken down some important tips I need to remember:

• Make icons graphic and bold.
• Use geometric, consistent shapes.
• System icons are displayed as 24 x 24 dp.
• Position icons “on pixel.”
• System icons use a consistent stroke width of 2dp,
• Use consistent stroke weights and squared stroke terminals.

I have previously written about how I have planned out how I will create my own travel icons link here.Moving forward I have started designing those icons digitally and here’s how it went…

Broken line idea

One of the ideas that I liked was the idea of breaking the icons up, breaking the line. I thought this would add a modern twist to my icons, I have sketched out this idea down below.

Sketches

Exploring digitally

The below image shows my idea brought to life (digitally), however I don’t like this approach. I feel like this would be too difficult to keep consistent with all of the icons that will be used in my app and I feel like this takes away from the strength of the overall shape of my icons. I really like the width of 2 dp here for these icons I prefer the simplicity of the line work and I want to keep these initial shapes but as for the ‘broken line’ idea I will not be carrying that forward. This was a good exploration but moving forward I want a more consistent and strong set of icons so I need to go back to the drawing board.

Final set

I decided to go back to the sketchbook to plan out again my icons, getting rid of that broken line idea and keep the lines together and I have included my sketches below.

Sketches

Final icon set

This is my final set of icons, I think that this set is much stronger that my original idea. They are constants in height and width and they can be increased in size for the usage of different aspects for my app, e.g. larger for nav but smaller next to text elements.

Reflection

I am very happy with my final set of icons for my app, these icons can be reused all throughout my app and are consistent. I will get advice and critiques from Paul and see what changes I need to make to my set. I find it is interesting to see my ideas evolve and grow and see my skills better over time with confidence and practice. I think that these icons will definitely suit my style of travel app that I want and overall I am very proud, I am excited to see these icons in use within my app!