Icons

An icon is the advertisement that stays after the listing closes. It has to hold its place in a busy grid without a headline to explain it.

Start with the silhouette

Reduce the artwork until it is a small shape on a screen. If its identity depends on lettering or a fine internal line, that identity is likely to disappear first. A strong outer shape often carries more than a careful miniature drawing.

Gloss is a time signal

A reflection, a bevel and a soft shadow can make a square feel like an object. A flat face can make it feel like a sign. Neither treatment is automatically clearer; the question is what survives at the size a reader actually sees.

Try the crowded grid

Judge the mark beside other marks, on light and dark fields. Two or three colours should do different jobs rather than compete for the same edge. On our homepage, the mint fold and coral half-sun make one readable gesture.

Look at the one-inch advertisement, then follow it into Screens.