You Don’t Need an Icon Designer or Even Photoshop

An independent creator’s guide to getting a quality icon for free.

Wishlist+ current app icon

Here is the logo that I made for my app Wishlist+. It was made by me, for free, without using any paid tools such as Photoshop or Sketch. It may not win any icon design awards but it definatly doesn’t look out of place on a homescreen either. There are several key ingredients to making an icon like this for yourself:

Time

I made the first draft of this icon in an hour and a half. As you can see in this image the final icon only had a few more minutes of tweaks added on a month later.

Small refinements made in minutes

Contrary to popular belief, I did not find this process time consuming. As long as you combine all of the right elements, the process is straightforward and short.

Restraint

Before you go looking for inspiration for your idea you need to set rules for yourself. I limited myself to basic shapes and color schemes. This is one of the biggest keys to making the design time so short. When you are just dealing with a bunch of rounded squares on one color gradient, you can not only create you icon quickly, you can rapidly make changes. Designing a mostly flat icon with simple shapes takes minutes rather than days.

Inspiration

At first, you will probably struggle to find an idea for your app. When I was stuck I looked at Apple’s system apps for inspiration. I was specifically inspired by the Apple News icon.

Wishlist+ and the icon that inspired it

If you are still struggling to find an idea for you app think of what physical metaphors you can use to represent your app. For example, my app is a wishlist so my icon is a list. The Apple News app contains news so the icon is a news paper.

Tools

The entire creation process took place in two web apps, http://designapp.io/ and https://makeappicon.com. All of the design was done for free in Designapp and that file was uploaded to MakeAppIcon, which generates all of the necessary icon files for iOS or Android. Both of these tools are 100% free to use.

Designapp may not be the best design client, feel free to use Photoshop if you have it, but it lets you make app icons with our limited rules. You can many geometric shapes and color gradients, but I used one shape, the rounded square.

designapp.io and the rounded square

A note on icon designers

I am in no way saying that what icon designers are doing is worthless or easily replaceable. Making a free icon in a web app does not replace professional work for people with enough money. However, if you want to make your icon yourself, for free, it is possible. It is probably preferrable for smaller companies/independant creatives as well.

To conclude, if you are making your first app or need branding for a website, you do not have to pay $100s of dollars for a designer to do it for you. If you would rather spend a couple hours you can get a design exactly the way you want it for free.

Thank you for reading my article, the app discussed is called Wishlist+ and it is available on the App Store here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/wishlist/id1229495537