When I first started designing icons, I never even for a second thought I could work as a full-time icon designer. My background is UI/UX design, and I haven’t been into icons that much, to be honest.
The first time I bumped up against icon design was when I couldn’t get a proper fit for one of my projects. I had nothing to do but learn a few techniques, and I eventually came up with some shitty icons for the website I was working on. Right when I thought I was done with it forever, the company I was working for back then got a few icon design requests, so I had to do those too. Frankly speaking, I didn’t like it, and it didn’t seem like something important to me at the moment.
But everything changed when one day I decided to create a small icon set just to get the feel of it. It was summertime, I wasn’t overloaded with work at my studio, so why not dedicate this free time to design practicing, I thought.
I took a few icons from my previous web project, refined them and started building a travel themed set. That was the very first time I felt that creating icons could actually be fun. While making them just for myself, I was able to play with styles and choose only the metaphors I liked.
That was also the moment I got interested in the passive income and selling my works on Creative Market. Even though I’d never tried anything similar before.
Starting big wasn’t my intention, so I signed up and uploaded my first icon set just to test the market. A few days later while hanging out with my friends at a coffee shop, my phone dinged. It was a notification saying I had been paid a couple of bucks. I was crazy happy. The amount of money didn’t matter – the whole idea of earning anything while sipping coffee seemed insane. Need I say how inspired I was to create another icon set as soon as get home? Looking back, I reckon that was when it all started for me, and I began treating icon design seriously.
Now I can proudly say I’m an icon designer! I hardly do any UI/UX design anymore, working full-time on icons. And I could not be happier about how it all turned out.
Designing icons brings me so much joy, my clients are incredible and my career is in its blossom. As cheesy and posh as it may sound, I am in that “do what you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life” place right now.
Although now everything seems to be wonderful, it wasn’t always like this. I struggled a lot in the beginning. And don’t even get me started on the doubts I used to have.
Being an icon designer could be scary. In fact, it is scary. It looks like such a niche thing to work in. I mean…is it even possible to make a living out of creating icons? Questions like this used to haunt me when I first started contemplating about doing it full-time.
The thing is that in today’s world niches is what you should be focusing on.
It’s simple: every field is overcrowded, and you cannot be good at everything at once, so there will always be hundreds of people better than you. What you have to do though is niche down as much as possible and then become an expert at that one particular thing. This is the way to success. Trust me. And icon design is a perfect niche to take by storm right now.
Another big concern that used to scare the hell out of me was committing to icon design.
Okay, so I’ve started practicing icon design, but does that mean I will be designing icons for life now? The most confusing part of this kind of question was that such doubts never occurred when I was working on UI/UX projects. However, the answer is clear. Probably, not. But hey, there’s nothing bad about it at all. Once you become an expert at one field, you can slowly transit to another. The world is full of various things you’ve never tried, and ideas hang thick in the air.
To prove my point – recently I have started exploring the world of illustrations. It’s pretty close to the icon design, so the transition is quite easy. And even though I am not planning on giving up on icon design and diving deep and serious into illustration, it is definitely a nice skill to master and a great addition to my designs.
Why illustration? I have always been fascinated by the idea of creating my own clothing brand. I made my own caps, t-shirts, jumpsuits. A few years ago I even printed “keep calm and…” t-shirts, and they were fairly successful. I never took it seriously though.
Now when my icon and illustration skills allow me to create the artwork I haven’t been capable of ever before, it’s high time to get back to creating my own t-shirts. You all already know that I believe in starting small, so for now I’ll try to run a Cotton Bureau campaign just to test the demand. And god knows how excited I am about it!
Oh, and the blog… Who could have guessed I’m gonna run a blog and actually be a writer one day! Definitely not me – never ever in my life I imagined myself writing articles, and to be fair, I wasn’t that good at writing back at school. But writing about icon design changes everything completely. It turned out I only needed a topic I would be so passionate about, and now seeing that I’m able to provide value for you is just priceless.
This is yet another example of me exploring other things, and slowly transitioning and floating among them. If you’re thinking about starting a career as an icon designer and you’re a little bit scared, you should keep in mind that you can always go back to your old design field or explore something new on the go. Moving, improving and never standing in one place is what matters the most. And it is relevant to whatever it is you are doing in life.
So to sum up and help you build the confidence, I’ll repeat the key points one more time.
1) It’s way easier to make a living working in one particular niche (such as icon design, for instance), than trying to be good at everything. Remember the old saying “jack of all trades, master of none”?
2) If you want to build a career of an icon designer, don’t stick to it for the rest of your life. And you probably won’t be able to do it anyway. It’s in people’s nature to constantly strive for more, to self improve every day. When we run out of our daily challenges, we are searching for some new ones instead. So if you feel bored and unmotivated in your design field, or simply want to try out something new, give icon design a go. You have nothing to lose! And you never know until you try.
I hope my humble insight into my life and my own experience will help you grow and develop. Remember that we all have been there at some point, and fear and doubts are natural, but it’s stepping out of your comfort zone that can change the game forever.
