Icons

Posted on:October 03 2013

When working on new features, I sometimes have the feeling the most time spent is figuring out how the icons on the buttons for the new feature should look like. It really isn't easy. And definitely not unimportant. But I feel I spend way too much time on this, every time. They either look ugly, don't match the other, existing icons, or you have no idea what they do when looking at them. Not easy.

Comments:

Use placeholders!

Make them intentionally bad - otherwise you will be caught into a spiral of "it could be better", which is the same as what you are already doing. If your placeholders are any good, you are doing it wrong.

Ditto for map making - but that is another topic.

Hales

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2013-10-03 12:20:00

Yes, but someday you have to spend the time to do them. And then this will take time. Even if you are outsourcing it to artists :)

niko

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2013-10-03 12:22:00

I feel like designing icons is a lot of fun, and thus, one spends a lot of time on it (maybe too much), but what's wrong with having a bit of fun? Seems legit to me.

mike

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2013-10-03 18:29:00

You type an email, rework it a few times and finally get aware that the initial version was the best. Sounds familiar?

This "phenomenon" happens to me quite often. So I started to use the simplest, releasable version of anything which initially comes to my mind. It does not have to be perfect, just good enough for release. In many cases there is no need for further improvement.

Getting satisfied with less glitzy outcome is key. :)

hermitC

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2013-10-04 09:49:00

thats why in web projects, i usually default to twitter bootstrap so i dont need to think of buttons and all

john

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2013-10-14 08:15:00