Chunk5

The article "7 Principles of Effective Icon Design" written by Sean Hodge gives me lots of thooughts in regard to creating icons that work well together and fit seamlessly within our design.

"If you need to draw several icons, you need to think over images for the whole sets of icons before proceeding with illustrating activities."

When designing a set of icons, designers should consider approaching icon design holistically. Designers should have a rough blueprint of the theme, outlook and style of the set of icons at the beginning of design, ensuring icons can be aesthetically appreciated and work together harmoniously. Usually, designers overly focus on one signle icon, ignoring that the whole set of icons should be consistent in style. Although each icon needs to differ from surrounding ones, the set of icons tend to work as a group so that they must be sonsistent.

"There are times when the aesthetic interest of the icon may be worth loosing some of its iconic impact."

I am wondering where this situation may occur. Decorative icons can be used on children's websites or children's educational software. Children usually have a short span of attention, colorful, lovely icons can let them stay for a longer time. I think children do not need to quickly recognize what the icon is. Sometimes they click on certain icons without knowing what it is and what the destination is, only for the reason that they love those attractive icons. Those icons match children's characteristics and arouse their interest. Under this circumstances, loss of quick recognition of symbols is worth the added decoration.