Summary:

<aside> 💡 Icons- offer a form of visual symbols that everyone is familiar with.

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• They can label, inform and navigate quickly and effectively in a small amount of space.
• They’re convenient in digital environments, diagrams and other forms of visual communication.

Before learning about icons, I didn’t know the importance of them in everyday life, from on menus to show allergens to airports showing where things are such as toilets or flight gates.

I didn’t think icons were part of my course, I thought it was more for an illustration course. Although, I’m excited to learn more and get to continue experiment with them in my music app and master apprentice exercises.

Icon Design-History:

Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt

Icon design can be traced back to Ancient Egypt, where they were used for record keeping and monumental display dedicated to royalty and gods. They used a type of writing called ‘hieroglyphics’, that is made up of symbols instead of letters.

I was fascinated to hear that the first icons came from Ancient Egypt. I thought the earliest were from the first Olympic Icons, but designers took inspiration from the Egyptians, which is amazing.

Role of Icons in UX/UI Design:

1. Navigation
2. Visual Hierarchy
3. Universal Language
4. Aesthetics
5. Usability

I will further investigate these roles when creating my own icons for my music app. I think especially visual hierarchy and universal language will be crucial. I will make sure the icons are sized in order of importance to catch the user’s eye, and they are easily recognisable for all languages.

Rules of Icon Design:

1. Clarity of meaning
2. Readability