IdolHands.com :: Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek
Your Icon Sucks.
I've noticed that a lot of the apps on my iPhone feature icons that are nothing more than letters displayed on a generic Web 2.0 button background. (I had a little bit of fun arranging them to spell words, but the entertainment value quickly wore off.)
Still, out of curiosity, I decided to go exploring in the iTMS App Store to see if I could find an application icon for every letter of the alphabet. I was not disappointed:
Now, some applications and web sites have a really strong brand that is easily identifiable with a single letter: Google, Yahoo!, and WordPress are great examples of this. But too many of these icons seem to be the result of developers or designers producing formulaic icons that even trained monkeys could do better. (Even Adobe has fallen into this trap with their pseudo-periodic-table icons for the Creative Suite applications.)
I know that a lot of developers don't give a damn about user interface, let alone design, but users in general— and Apple users in particular— expect a certain aesthetic sensibility combined with power, flexibility, and usability in their applications. This is at the heart of the Apple experience.
Maybe I'm making too much of an issue out of icons, but think of it this way: you may not care much about "presentation" when you go to Denny's for breakfast at 2 am, but your expectations are higher when you go to a nice restaurant for dinner. Is the taste or nutritional quality of the meal improved upon if there's an attractive garnish, if the food is arranged nicely, or if there's a linen tablecloth? No, but it's a sign of quality that speaks to more than a basic need to sate your hunger. On a subconscious level, you read a nice presentation as the outward sign of quality ingredients lovingly and expertly prepared for your enjoyment.
Usability aside, the presentation of your app can have the same effect on your users.
If you're developing an application, please spend time considering how best to present your work to the world. It doesn't matter if your target audience is captive (e.g. internal enterprise application) or aesthetically challenged (e.g. Windows users); to everyone except yourself, the design and user interface of your application is your application.
Many of you will ignore my advice and decide that spending the time designing a good icon is not worth it. Fine. As a service to the world, I offer the following Vanilla Application Icon Designer (VAPID), which will simultaneously allow lazy app developers to create generic icons for their iPhone and other apps, while preventing lazy designers from making a single dime creating these generic icons.
V
Simply enter the first letter of the name of your application, pick a font family and font color, a background color for your generic Web 2.0 button, and the amount of gloss that you would prefer. When your icon is just the way you like it, take a screen shot.
VAPID works with any functional modern browser (e.g. not Internet Explorer) that supports CSS and alpha transparency.
Comments
Elaine
February 2, 2009 at 7:43 AMVAPID looks great! How soon can I buy a copy? ; )
jhaneyzz
February 6, 2009 at 4:24 PMCorey, you obviously have far too much time on your hands. By the way, this is hilarious. James
Ivan Road
February 8, 2009 at 10:23 AMCorey. With a header and page design like yours, it's bad form to claim lazy design on others. Talk about 10-minute formula designs.
Corey Ehmke
February 8, 2009 at 5:17 PMDid I hit a nerve? My post was pretty snarky, so I expect that some people will be offended. I totally stand by the point I was trying to make, however: I'm sick to death of lookalike icons. As for idolhands.com, I am open to criticism <em>of the constructive kind</em>; I've been staring at the same laout for so long that I may be blind to its shortcomings. Fire away.
Gene
February 12, 2009 at 6:53 AMI promise to use VAPID for my next digital ransom note.
Dennis
February 22, 2009 at 5:25 PMFunny, I was just thinking Corey's site design looked rather pleasant (seriously, that's exactly what I was thinking even *before* reading the article). Okay, maybe it's not a masterpiece, but it's at least handsome. I would take Ivan's comment with a grain of salt. -Dennis
Alex
February 27, 2009 at 8:29 PMHeyyy Thanks :) i was looking for something like this
Lindsay
March 17, 2010 at 11:15 AMThanks after racking my brains and looking on the net for some icon I found exactly what I was looking for here! Many thanks.
