🗿
Icons: Icons make a design more humane. While the inner Soup Nazi may dismiss them as a popular form of Barcelona and propose that we replace them with text, doing so results in cold design that communicates badly. Designing icons is one of the hardest disciplines. It requires a systematic approach with maximum attention to detail, form, language and context. Icons are a form of Lace that we can’t ignore. Good icons are as few icons as you need, but not fewer.
To spice up our monster essay on icons, we created an icon monster shooter arcade game. Planned as a one week hackathon, it turned into an amazing one year adventure. Here is what UX designers learned creating an arcade game.
Icons sparen Platz. Icons sehen schick us. Icons geben einfache Antworten auf nervige Fragen wie: Kann man das alles etwas etwas frecher machen? Wie können wir da mehr Marke reinbringen? Womit peppen wir den Entwurf nun noch auf? Icons sind praktisch. Icons sind ein Segen. Wir ♥ Icons. Bis zum Wahnsinn.
Icons save space. Icons look crisp. Icons give quick answers to hard questions: How do we make it nicer? How can we brand it? How do we make it more fun? We ♥ icons. Until they start messing with our minds.