New App Icon (feedback appreciated)

The_Gamesalad_Guru

having a great app icon drives people to explore your app and I felt our app icon for the Little Beasties was driving our traffic down so I designed a new one..Let me know what you think. I wish apple would let you update the icon on existing apps.

POM

I recommend removing the text and enlarge the animals .

Also , the animals colors are flat (vector) , and the background color is gradient , try vectorize it .
Roy.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

The reason the name is in there is for branding Kate Gleeson is a well known children's book writer and illustrator who has 26 titles published with Golden Books so her name is part of the brand. This brand had 5 million in sales. Yeah the characters are vector as that is Kate's style but the background is like that to add depth of field but I could vectorize it but will still be adding a blur to it.

POM

http://www.pixelresort.com/blog/iphone-app-icon-design-best-practises/
Good article about icon design .

And about "Kate Gleeson" I'm not familiar but i hope you know what your doing in terms of copyrights (i don't want you to get legal issues)

Roy.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

We own the brand and the rights my partner is her husband. She passed away about two years ago at the young age of 50. When Golden Books went under they gave her all her rights back.

StormyStudio

Nice characters...colours...

ok..so some constructive feedback...

- can you remove the corners as we can still see the triangles......have the corners we can see as plain white, or yellow with out the triangle in a triangle... (hope that makes sense).

- I appreciate what your saying about 'Gleeson' being a well known name...but I think it will be so small when people are viewing on their iphones/ipads... that it will look too busy..and you might be better off without the name..after all they can see the title of the app at the same time anyway.. just an idea.

- If its a book related app...could the logo almost be like a book...

e.


- maybe just try..( it might not work)... losing the text, scaling up the two characters and have them on a pink background..same as the font...or even on black.. the characters look great!!

* what you've made already looks good..just trying to help it look great..

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Sandra Boyton adds her name as well it's part of branding and when you have an established brand like us you use the name recognition. It would be like Coca Cola leaving the name Coke off their app icon. Might serve well for jump games et.. but not for established brands. @Stormy I'm going to try the black and I'm going to clean up the edges once I get what I want.

Rob2

@FlyingBaconStudios are you still D Souza as his old posts now say FlyingBaconStudios - bit confused

StormyStudio

fair enough... if the name carries lots of recognition definitely leave it in..

just found this when googling Sandra Boynton... perhaps some more variation with the 'Gleeson' text. Scale up the 'G'...make if look more illustrated..like its been done with a caligraphy pen perhaps...

jonmulcahy

Resize the icon to 57x57 and repost it, that's how it will look on idevices., I think it's too busy when reduced. Remove the background, make it a solid color, that will allow the name to stand out. See how the icon above looks? It's clean and simple. A lot of great icons don't look as good when stalled down.

jonmulcahy

This is what it will look like on the device.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I need a different font for sure.

jonmulcahy

Are you targeting iPhones or iPads? That's makes a difference. The icon I reduced is an iPhone icon, the icon that stormy posted is an iPad icon, you can see its 2x bigger. That gives you much more room to work with.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

We do both. Think I'm getting closer.

ultima

you can't even see gleeson now. use typefaces that is easy to read even at small size if you have a signature use the signature (even though it's not legible at this size, but the shape along will give you the recognition you need. but don't use any of these effects... try to find nice simple color, give the line on the animal a little weight... right now it looks like it's .5 or .75 point.. punch it up to 2 or 3 on the outline and you can have 1 for the interior lines... also on the icon border you can use the same black outline... but the idea is to restrict the amount of effects and different things... 1 type color, or 1 easy to read gradient, 2-3 line weight, 2-3 animal color... 1 background color... etc...

hope that helps bacon.

(notice the pig icon above... the signature is simple and even though you can't make out if it says boynton or boyntoy or boyntom.. it don't matter there's recognition, notice how simple the background is? so the stars and the pig and the type stands out... i'm not saying it's a good icon because it's not but it's the direction you should aim towards to... the composition you have now is great, there's dynamic... but color/line is terrible.... trying doing this (for the ones who is not trained to see contrast... ) make your icon black and white (using photoshop or whatever) and if you can't make out the shape or what it says... people who look at your icon for a few second won't be able to too... now try to put that boynton(or whatever) in black and white... you'll see definitive shape that's recognizable... )

i'm giving u extremely valuable information here so do read it and go through what i just mention because it'll usually cost you an arm and a leg to hire someone to take you along this deep just to fixing your icon...

jorkos

those colors don't go well together....have one dominant color and then a secondary color as the background. my 2 cents.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

As far as the line go we have a strick syle guide we have to follow for the characters so the lines must be a certain thinkness but yeah I'm trying to circle what you're saying just haven't found the right combo yet. Thanks for all the feed back! @rob yes I am my name is david.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I think I'm really close.

gyroscope

Hi FBS, personally, if you don't mind my opinion, I think you're going backwards. The cloud and sun are unnecessary and clutter the icon, the type is too small again as well as not very readable (especially the "e"s and the "n"), not only with the choice of typeface but less readable because of the graduation in it. I don't think you need any graduation at all anywhere in the icon.

The nearest you got to it – again in my opinion - was this one:



The charming illustrations speak for themselves and the type - although still the wrong font as you said - is the most readable of all so far (apart from the "s").

As a suggestion, work further on this version, changing the font to a clear and readable sans serif (one that hasn't any character "quirks") and make it the full width of the icon (a slightly extended typeface would help here so you don't get more than the depth of type you need). You could still experiment with different colourways: the background as flat colour balanced with the flat colour of the type and the colours in the illustration... Hope that's of some help...

I hope you don't think I'm being harsh, I'm just being honest as I can to give constructive criticisms as I see it.

----------------------------------------------
http://davidgriffinapps.co.uk/

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Hey David, I'm a firm believer in if you want your work to be great then people who kiss your ass are no help! Thanx for daring to be honest. How about if I get rid of the text and keep the rest?

gyroscope

Glad you took my constructive crits well! :-)

I guess that's down to you (about taking the name out all together); if you did, you could then "afford" to put back in a multi-coloured background, I'm thinking, like the rainbow effect in your very first icon perhaps, and move up the illustrations to fill the icon more.

I guess it's also down to whether or not the surname "Gleeson" is well-known as a "household name" or well-known as a children's illustrator. If not, I can't see any benefit to you or the app user... of course, the lady's name will be in the app, so maybe the surname could go...

The_Gamesalad_Guru

solvalou

Try increasing the size of the stroke/outline of the characters. When it is shrunk down it is hard to make out what they are. Same with the spots on the cat, make them bigger and reduce their numbers.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

As I said we have a style guide for line size everything has to be to line specified thickness and is scaled properly I can't change the line depth or spots or any character specific scaling. No offence but it's obvious some don't understand working with established trademarked characters like this, you can't just go changing stuff like that as these characters have to stay perfectly consistant across all types of products and graphics. Even the colors we can use are specified in the style guide developed by Kate.

ultima

with all due respect mr Bacon, I eat style guide for breakfast.. scratch that.. i make style guide for breakfast... in fact everyone i know had made at least 1 style guide and some for respected company such as disney, P&G, apple, HP, samsung, nokia, vertue just to name a few... (i am not bragging or bluffing because i didn't make them, I just know people who make them and why they did, and the ONLY reason they exist is for "designers" or "contractors" or even company employees not to mess up designers original intention and make an consistent "good" replication of the design. and for people who doesn't understand that it had became the "BOOK" that you can't touch or mess with. If you have not understand this, it only mean the style guide has not done it's job, (it's not your fault) or the person who made the style guide does not know full well why these guides exists. while not dis-regarding kate here, i'd only like to state that it seems like the prior, that the original intention is mis-understood. If you follow the guide so strictly the company will never ever improve.

it's like going to a new doctor and argue the medicine bag says "eat once a date" and dismiss the "new" doctor, so only ate it when you have a date... not knowing the original doctor (who had past away) had made a mistake in writing.

i'm not trying to be mean, but you just taken our good will (and trust me sir, some of us, in fact a few of us actually know a thing or two about style guides. and there are other in the forum who's just as competent in this area of expertise) and start talking down at us as if we are doing you a dis-service. if you want to talk characters, we can talk disney, and trust me, modifications are always being made to FIT the needs of the projects and not the other way around. And you do drive over 60 miles on the freeway when you are gushing blood all over.

I apologize, as this is not meant to be a personal attack but you simply trample over our good will.

ultima

and yet, i still want to help you open your eyes, please go back to your style guide and find the section where, when logo(or character) is shrunk down to how many points, please this "this version" of the logo and and when it's over which size, use "this version" ... it should also have a section where it says you can't shrink it down to less than "xxx" points... (as they are variations designed to fit different situations, and in this case, visual correction), in the same section it will also say do not use high contrast gradient or text over high contrast gradient.... and if you can't find such section... well.. like I said, it's not really a good style guide to begin with.

and if you still think i'm pulling this out of my ass... i don't think anyone can help if you are not being open.

perhaps the strictest thing about them is the color, and trust me under certain circumstances, even the color gets shifted so they appear or gets printed properly.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

First of all I said some and not all. I chose that word for a reason. I meant no disrespect to you as I've followed your advice. Yes I shrunk the lines to scale in illustrator from the original. Our style guide does say what size the lines should be and requires that when shrinking it should be done in proportion. Part of Kate's specific style were her lines and dots and those are addressed in the guide and well as a color chart. you must remember this artist has passed on and we are dealing with legacy issues, not any easy thing. I mean no offense to you and by no means meant to trample your reputation as I wasn't specific in my reference nor did I single you out. Trust me when I say be as harsh as you like I have very thick skin and am not offended easily. Best regards, David

ultima

fair enough but a word of advice, when you shrink the lines shouldn't be done in proportion. because of visual weight issues. if you have studied the in and outs of typography as mr Jobs have, good typefaces has sets that's designed for different size range, meaning smaller typefaces will have thicker lines and bigger poster size version has a thinner line... take a look at adobe garamond premier pro for example. it has different 5-6 dozen variations one for each size and weight( art work is the same because i've dealt with disney and the people who works on style guide for disney, and disney is all about legacy as well, in fact one of the disney consumer product head quarter is located here in glendale/burbank area as some of the LA member from the forum is around here too, and they deal with character licensing and reproduction expensively, and yes they modify character drawings all the time in order to re-produce it properly, if it's reproduced as it is then the visual quality would be incorrect even though technical specs is correct). if the style guide says scale in proportion the guide is wrong, and in order to preserve kate's legacy wouldn't it make sense to present her artwork in the most presentable manner? anyway, best of luck.

I think mr. jobs is so good at articulating design is because he understand the importance of these minuscule little details and how to finesse with them, because often times it's not about being technical (google / microsoft) but being articulate about how our eyes and mind perceives an object/image/brand.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

I shall try bumping up lines. Would you recommend a half or hole point in this type of thing?

ultima

well it's hard to say without actually working on the file but, anywhere in between .1 to 1 is generally accepted without compromising the look and feel. but that alone won't solve your problem, that's more of a "technical" side of things, you still have the problem of composition, and loose the cloud/sun i'd recommend at least, reverting back to the "gleeson" logo inclusion, and use the official logo if you have that lying around somewhere, if not better hire someone who knows what they are doing to design one for you

and try just white type over darker blue(or other darks) or dark type over lighter blue.

that'll at least get you to an acceptable design.

anymore than that it'll cost you an arm for me to spend anymore more time than i already have.. and if you happen to have a spare arm or leg to shed. id be more than happy to be at your service.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Thank you we have a logo designed by Kate that was on all her books and we used that as our app icon but it just doesn't work in that format well. Thanx for the valuable input all!