Icons Review

<== My Icons

Over the course of this project I have had to research the market about the different phones such as iPhones, Google Phones etc and compare them. I then had to reseach iconography and symbols and how they are used to represent different things - games and themes for example - so that I could start to understand them and use that knowledge to create my own icons - which are shown above.

The project started with researching icons and what they mean and how they are used in life.

As i researched the icons I learned about how they are used, what icons can represent and this led on to the next section - Themes. After I researched about icons in general, I then moved on to how icons can represent themes and how they do that.

The four major themes I identified in the collage above are War - represented by images such as soldiers, guns, explosions etc. Sci-fi -represented by aliens, ufo's and space. Fantasy - represented by images such as wizards, magi, elves and monsters, things that wouldn't exist in the natural world. The final theme on the collage is Horror which is represented by icnos/images such as zombies, monsters, graveyards, demons, darkness. The fifth theme that I identified was one of my own based on what I was researching for Rob's class for my game. The fifth theme was of Vampires Rock -

The next section I worked on was researching a bit about the company Apple and comparing the different iPhones and Google Phone to see that functions and uses each has.

Once I knew about iphones, how icons are used and that they can represent the different genres, i then started on concept work to create my own icons. I began that concept by drawing different shapes that could house the imges to create the icons - for example a square would be an obvious choice for an icon shape. I drew several shapes and then evaluated their strengths and weaknesses for the shapes until I decided on teh final choice of shape that I would use in my own icons.

After decideing on my shapes I then had to draw concept art for each of the themes and then evaluate those concept images again on their strengths and weaknesses as a potential icon. I did this for all five of my themes, each one having four concept images.

Having decided on what I would do my final icons as I drew those images up as final concept art and would then recreate them on the computer.

Generally I stuck with my concept art when I created my icons.
FANTASY
HORROR

SCI-FI
VAMPIRES ROCK
WAR

As stated, I generally kept with how my concept art was, the only change to it was for the war icon. Originally I was going to do a bullet, but after several tries at creating a bullet, I decided it wouldn't look very good. So instead I used my photoshop skills to create the effect of bullet holes on a brushed metal plate to represent war.

Overall I think the project went fairly well, the only way I can see it being better is that I have to work on my artistic skills, that way I can create better concept are and better final images.