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Icon and its importance

The icon of an app is a visual representation of the idea, objective, and content of it, therefore playing a key role in establishing relation with and attracting users. The icon of an app should be able to give a pictorial, quick-to-understand summary of its function and concept. Generally, the icon provides the first instance of the user’s encounter with an app. As a result, icons that follow design rules have a better chance at winning audience. Also, an app should have a memorable, distinctive icon so that in later visits, the user would be able to quickly identify it among many icons on Cafe Bazaar.

The following are a number of points to help you design the right icon for you app.

Novel idea

If you come up with a new idea in designing an icon for your app, you increase by degrees the chance of audience noticing your app among multiple apps with similar content. Using hackneyed images and designs that would quickly pop to anybody’s mind would make your icon fade into a monotonous, homogenous mass of icons.

You will get more refined and beautiful icons by investing time and ideation, as well as by having a professional design the icon. For example, if a whole series of apps on cooking come with clichéd pictures of sorts of food or utensils, they lack any advantage over each other to attract audience. In contrast, icons created with a new view of the same pictures and elements would be able to quickly catch people’s eyes.

Appropriate icon example
Inappropriate icon example

Keep in mind that your app’s icon represents your brand, and that an app with a sound, beautiful, and catchy icon will fix in people’s mind. In case the content of the app is also appropriate, the audience will be more willing in the future to use your other apps as well, sign they have developed confidence in your name as a developer.

Simplicity

Designing your icon, try to use a simplified element that draws inspiration from the basic idea of your app. This way, not only will audience be lured to open the app page by seeing a beautiful, catchy icon, they will get an idea of the app’s content and function. The congruity of that mental image and the explanations displayed on the app page will lay a positive impact on audience to decide to install the app. Refraining from the following will boost the impact of the icon on audience:

·         Multiple small, entangled visual elements

·         Overwhelming details (besides making your icon unattractive, this will cause the formation of an unclear icon in small resolutions)

·         Photos or screenshots of the app environment

·         Too much text

Acceptable icons in terms of simplicity
Inappropriate icons in terms of simplicity

Text

Designing an icon, you would better avoid using too many words and phrases. Besides taking away the visual beauty of the icon, texts will become illegible in small resolutions. Not using texts that are written in ordinary fonts will result in a more beautiful and successful icon. Use only words which have been professionally designed into logotype.

Acceptable Icons in terms of writing
Inappropriate Icons in terms of writing

Size

Android devices come with screens of different sizes and dpi. This makes it necessary for you do design your icon in a variety of sizes so that it will be displayed with the same acceptable quality on different devices. To do that, you need to create your icon in the 512*512 pixel resolution, and then use graphic software or icon generators to create your icon in the 192*192, 144*144, 96*96, 72*72, and 48*48 pixel versions.

As stated in Google Design and Material Design, the section about how to design and create icons, you can use the basic geometric shapes circle, square, and rectangle to create a beautiful, fitting icon. The appropriate sizes for these four shapes are given in the following picture:

Appropriate sizes for icons
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