Designing the Collection of Process Icons: A Vintage Touch
Project. icon sketch with blueprint and hard hat
Here’s the second part of the story about a new design project I’m working on. It’s about the creative process of a new collection of icons called “Process”.
I started this design project by asking you what kind of icons would be exceptionally useful for you. Which are your recurring projects and important files and folders that you need to find at a glance? Which of your projects do you love the most?
I also started the process of my previous collections of desktop icons by asking you what kind of icons you need, what would help you get organized and find focus in your digital environment?
Each time I’ve asked you what kind of icons you’d find useful, one of the strong trends has been icons that depict tangible, vintage or retro objects to symbolize your most important or loved projects. For example, there were tons of requests for a feather quill pen for “Writing” or “Documents” and an old-fashioned vinyl LP for “Music” (both part of the Collection of Creative Desktop Icons). The vintage office equipment in the Collection of Workflow Icons is another example and so is the old book for “Resources” and leather briefcase for “Work” (both part of the Collection of Organizer Icons)
Perhaps these types of solid, vintage objects bring a tangible feeling of functionality and beauty to our rather abstract, digital environment? Holding a charm and grace that captures our emotions in a way that digital, intangible audio, text and film files don’t?
Safe. icon sketch
Here’s my sketch of an icon that represents “Safe”. A small, old-fashioned office safe.
This is where you would store documents that are really important to your self, your family or your business. I’ll be using the Safe to store my original logo files, a backup of my blog, and some other important business documents. The “Safe” icon would also make a great icon for a backup disc. What would you put in the Safe?
Urgent/Overdue/Late. icon sketch of an old-fashioned alarm clock
This is my sketch for an icon that symbolizes Urgent/Overdue/Late. A retro wind-up alarm clock with bells.
Here’s an icon with a unique silhouette that makes it stand out on the desktop so you can find it at an instant. And that’s just what you need when you’re looking for overdue or urgent projects.
One of the challenges when creating this sketch of an alarm clock, was making sure it would look good at small sizes too. I actually spent several days making new sketches of the design and testing that it would look great all the way down to the tiny size you see when you display your icons in list view. I’ll still be reworking the smaller versions, but I want the largest version to resemble the smallest version, as much as is possible without losing any of its functionality and beauty. That’s one of the most important parts of the sketching phase for a new icon project.
Another key part of the sketching phase is to create distinctive silhouettes that make it easy to locate the icon you’re looking for (I wrote about that in the first part of this series).
And last but not least, creating a family of icons where everyone is unique and has their own personality and yet you can tell that they’re family. They fit together as well as with the icons that belong with your operating system, either Windows or Mac. The icons bring a personal, designer feeling to your desktop, and without drawing too much attention to themselves, the icons help you get unstuck and organized so you can work with flow and ease through your day.
Not sure how to customize your icons? Here’s a tutorial for using icons on a Mac and here’s a tutorial for how to change the icons in Windows.
[To be continued... ]
Did you miss Part One of this series?
Tags: creative process, design, focus, getting organized, ink, organized, Process Icons, retro, sketch, vintage
