Blog
18. March 2010
The importance of the app icon
In the AppStore there are more than 150’000 apps, most of them are made without any love for the user interface and even less love for their icons. That’s a huge mistake, because the first thing that you’ll see of an app is its icon.
It’s a fact that the first impression matters, not only when we meet a person but in every situation in our lives. So we have put much effort and much work in our icon. From the beginning we knew that the icon can attract peoples attention.
Of course designing an icon is a long and iterative process, we had many ideas, many concepts. Here you can see some of the steps during the evolution of the MoneyBook icon:
We’re really proud of the finished result. Often when you design something for yourself you are never 100% satisfied. Or maybe in the first moment you like your design, but after a few days when you look at it you get that feeling that something is wrong and not perfect. So we are very lucky that after all these months we still love our icon and we like it even more from day to day!
So app developers should never underestimate the meaning of a beautiful icon.
David Hellmann - 18. March 2010
Icon #2 finde ich auch sehr schön. Aber es ist richtig, mich sprechen die Icons auch immer an und diese entscheiden auch oft ob ich eine App überhaupt näher anschaue oder nicht. Scheint bei euch geklappt zu haben
Swiftman - 18. March 2010
You hit the nail on the head. If the icon looks bad, I WILL NOT buy the app. It’s that simple.
To me, the most important things in an app icon is simplicity, elegance, and avoid using words.
Examples:
BeejiveIM
TweetMusic
Attic
MoneyBook
Hippo Remote Pro
Deliveries
Outside
Riddim Ribbon (I know, this goes against my no words rule, but they put words on the icon and made it look good.)
mik3sh - 18. March 2010
Guys, to be honest, the icon was the first that made me interesting in your app. App itself is as interesting as its icon. I like them very much
L - 18. March 2010
I totally agree.
The first thing that made me bought your app is the icon and the user interface.
Even if it wasn’t the exact app I wanted, I just bought it because it was beautiful and attractive!
Awesome work guys!
YAOIjonge - 18. March 2010
The final icon is brilliant ))) I really love your app guys )))
pomor - 18. March 2010
I ABSOLUTELY agree about the importance of an app’s icon.
It’s like your house facade — if the front looks bad, people aren’t going to be interesting to come in.
I will tell you this. Some of my favorite apps have the best apps and some don’t
Consider the icon for THINGS. There is a competitor — Omnifocus — perhaps, with much more complex mechanism in how it organizes things, but the icon isn’t very pretty.
There are MANY productivity apps in the apps store but nothing matches that of Things. It’s a pleasure to click on 10 times a day. The only closest competitor is 2Do — elegant icon albeit perhaps a bit too busy with color (color calendar, but that is a feature of the app I think they want to emphasize thru the icon.
My favorite icons:
Things
Smart:Vocab
Mantis Bible Reader
MoneyBook (DUH!)
iStayFit
Durak
Pocketball
Dark Nebula
Convert
WeDictPro
Icons that WERE good but went worse:
NoteMaster
Speakit!
EasyWiFI
(I HATE, HATE, DETEST, did I say HATE? icons with black background. They make the icon stand out like a sore thumb. I like consistency of interface.)
Mathias - 18. March 2010
It’s a great icon, I really like it.
I once removed an app from my iphone due to a really ugly app icon.
Champagne01 - 1. April 2010
I completely agree, great to see the evolution of an app icon! Only a few app icons are beautiful, Momento, 2Do, to name a few. And now MoneyBook.
If devs put so much attention into an icon, you can tell that they will have
put the same or more into the app itself, particularly the UI.
It is really a true-life case of judging a book by its cover.
Daniel - 2. April 2010
Monybook beautiful icon shows your commitment to the application and attention to detail.
I didn’t know about Moneybook, but I saw it’s icon while watching a review of an unrelated application, the well designed icon got my attention, and made me want to know more about this app, and what a surprise to find this beautiful application.
Although it doesn’t have all the features I would like in this kind of application, I decided to give it a try because of the gorgeous interface, and have been using it since with no regrets.
I understand your decision to keep it simple, but I believe that noidentity will be able to add more features (like control over credit and debit cards and bank accounts for exemple) while still keeping it simple with your great design and user interface.
Thanks for your work!
Bob - 7. April 2010
Couldn’t agree with you more! An application’s icon is extremely important – especially in the App Store with over 150,000 apps! Great job on your icon!
Chuck Power - 7. May 2010
Etwas spät würde auch ich noch gerne meine Begeisterung für das Icon aussprechen. Gefällt mir sehr gut. Allgemein gefällt mir das Interface ausserordentlich gut. Man spührt die Liebe, welches dem Programm mit auf den Weg gegeben wurde. Design und Funktionalität gehen Hand in Hand. Es macht auch nach 5 Monaten immer noch Spass, damit zu arbeiten. Kuhl.
Sandro (Admin) - 7. May 2010
Danke viel mal, freut uns natürlich zu hören.
Denke auch gerade bei einer finanz-app muss schon noch eine portion spass dabei sein, sonst verwendet man die app nicht lange.