by Justas | Apr 22, 2016 | Inspiration
Hey guys! How are you doing? Once again I present you collection of great icons and icon sets. It’s nice to see so many different styles and interesting approaches on icon design. I’m sure you will discover some great icon designers and awesome icon sets....
by Justas | Apr 19, 2016 | Articles
There have been a lot of talks around the well-known Save icon. Every now and then another article about kids not knowing what a floppy disk is pops up in my news feed. The point of these articles is that using a floppy as a Save icon is no longer relevant, so we need to immediately change it. But do we really? I keep track of the icons that everybody suggests to replace it with, but I haven’t yet come across one that would look better than the floppy disk. Honestly, a floppy disk may be the ideal object for an icon, and here is why: It has a recognisable shape; It’s square, which means it perfectly fits into an icon grid; It doesn’t have any tiny details so it’s distinctive even in small sizes; Everybody knows its meaning already. Kids may not understand what that is, but they do know what that icon stands for; It means only one thing – save. Unlike some other icons such as a magnifying glass that can mean both ‘search’ and ‘zoom’. So why change it? If you look carefully at your desktop screen, you will notice a bunch of other antique symbols. I mean, do you remember the last time you used an actual magnifying glass? And do kids really know what that strange curvy thing we press to call somebody on a smartphone is? My daughter just asked why we say “hang up” the phone and now I feel 90. — Jason English (@EnglishJason) June 2, 2015 A Settings gear, folders, etc. There are tons of objects you would rarely...
by Justas | Apr 15, 2016 | Inspiration
Hey guys! How are you doing? Once again I present you collection of great icons and icon sets. It’s nice to see so many different styles and interesting approaches on icon design. I’m sure you will discover some great icon designers and awesome icon sets....
by Justas | Apr 12, 2016 | Articles
Hey! Hope everything is going great! If you follow me, you know that I spent the last month and a half traveling around Thailand exploring its magnificent islands. I needed this time-off to evaluate what I’ve achieved with Icon Utopia thus far and think of where I should go with it next. I talked briefly about my Thailand trip in the previous article if you want to check it out. So as mentioned there, I have some big plans for the blog. I decided that weekly blog posts are not enough anymore and I want to give the people who are willing to learn icon design more value. With that in mind, I started working on a bunch of exciting stuff like interviews, videos, tutorials, and so on. And now it is time for you to step in and help me with it! Here is the deal: I want to create an awesome, value packed from the first to the very last page “Icon Design Guide” that would contain everything you need to know to start working on your first icon set or simply to learn something new about icon design. I’ve written a good deal of blog articles about that, and I know you have learned a lot from them too considering how many positive emails I’m getting. This is fantastic and really motivating. You guys are incredible, and I don’t think I will ever stop telling you this. But also, going through your feedback I understood how extremely helpful a complete guide with all the necessary information about icon design would be. Just imagine a guide...
by Justas | Mar 1, 2016 | Articles
Hey! How are you doing? Hope everything is well! You may have noticed that I haven’t been as consistent with my output as I used to be. Every now and then I find myself skipping my weekly blog updates or putting a blind eye to the “Discover the best icons of the week” series. Of course this influences me negatively on both professional and personal levels because I’m that type who believes that consistency is the key ingredient when it comes to progress. I’m certain that you need to be persistent if you want to go forward and get better at something. But staying persistent is a hard job in itself, let alone when you feel accountable for delivering the best content about icon design. The responsibility is huge and the last thing I want to do is disappoint you guys. Since I have been struggling with keeping up with the schedule, I thought it would be productive to analyze why I have been delaying the work, and share my thoughts with you to help all of us be more obligated in the future. So let’s take a look at the issues that stop me from publishing regularly. By no means I’m trying to complain here. My aim is to examine the problem and suggest solutions to overcome them, because I know that a lot of people struggle with the similar issues. I’ve distinguished three main problems: 1) Not preparing work in advance Since I don’t prepare any articles in advance, I don’t have any buffer to rely on, which means I have to write all the articles a...
