Let’s just say that if there was a Bible for icon designers, it would probably be this book put together by Michael Flarup. Titled ‘The iOS App Icon Book’, this beautiful hard-bound publication captures years’ worth of digital design, brought about by the advent of the App Store with the launch of the very first iPhone.
“Design changed forever with the introduction of the Smartphone”, says Flarup sitting in front of a white background, in the rather Apple keynote-esque video above. “Entire new disciplines were created and existing ones were transformed”, he mentions, talking about how virtual app icons practically became the packaging that we consumed before the app’s features itself, serving as a powerful link between creator and user, and distilling an entire app’s experience into one tiny little square that was a gateway to the app itself.
“I figured Logo Design had beautiful coffee table books dedicated to them, right? So why not App Icon Design??”, Flarup questioned. That question led to a 4-year journey comprising many sleepless nights, hours spent in front of computers, and over 10,000 emails, finally culminating in The App Icon Book, a compendium of popular app icons, their iterations over the years, their design analyses, and the story behind their creation. Flarup’s labor of love is almost encyclopedic in how beautifully it captures every aspect of something as humble as the App Icon… or as I like to call it, the Welcome Mat that ushers you across a digital threshold into a virtual world.
Comments