A celebration of app icon design

I simply love app icons — they continue to be everything that excites me about visual design. App icon design is a carefully balanced discipline with the goal of producing a memorable graphic that sits at the intersection of art and utility. At their best, app icons are design, distilled. This book is a celebration of the art and craft of app icon design and the golden age of icon design that has lived and evolved on our devices this past decade.   

A beautiful artbook

The iOS App Icon Book features hundreds of works of art from individuals and teams around the world. It serves as an inspiration and as a historical collection covering more than a decade of design on the iOS platform. The icons in this book have been carefully curated to showcase conceptual and executional excellence in icon design and covers a broad range of applications, topics, and styles.

A primer on app icon design

Explore the core aspects of successful app icon design and go behind the scenes with prominent iconists, who share their stories and insights about the craft behind the pixels.  

A labor of love

Spanning four years, thousands of emails, hundreds of agreements, and countless contributors, this book has been put together by Michael Flarup, a Danish designer with a deep passion for app icons.‘Just making things that make me happy’ is usually how Michael explains his multidisciplinary career. His signature visual style is best described as vibrant and playful. Today you’ll find him running his game studio Northplay, freelancing as a graphic designer or speaking at conferences around the world while getting involved in as many side projects he can manage while being a dad. He is not super comfortable writing about himself in the third person, but his editor insisted.

Jim Nielsen runs and curates a range of icon gallery websites (e.g. iosicongallery.com) and has been instrumental in the creation of this book, through several years of long video calls, editorial decisions, and thousands of emails. A lot of the content in this book builds on his many years of dedicatedly running his icon galleries. Jim has been an invaluable sparring partner in all things related to the book, right from the start.

Anders Bothmann is a Danish designer with a background in print. He has been the architect behind the layout, preparing templates, and patiently helping Michael fumble his way through InDesign. He also coordinated the actual production of the book with our Danish printer and is orchestrating the logistical challenges of shipping.

Marc Edwards is a legendary designer and pixel connoisseur. He joined as an advisor early on and has been a great sounding board for the book. Marc has also written the foreword for the book.

Oliver Lindberg is an independent editor, content consultant and conference curator. He is editing this book and whipping it into a consistent reading experience.

Why make this book?

Digital design changed forever with the introduction of the smartphone: Entire new disciplines were created, and existing ones were transformed. One of the fields that would never be the same was icon design. The glowing squares on our devices became the connection to the digital lives we were living. People organize their icons on their home screens and have passionate discussions if a popular app changes their icon. Never before have icons mattered this much to this many people. The app revolution was also the icon revolution.

In the past decade a generation of designers have risen to meet this challenge and created a veritable treasure trove of artwork. It has been a golden age of icon design.

I've seen this particular corner of design grow into a beautifully large and diverse landscape. We’ve moved through trends and platform changes but the core aspects of app icon design remained the same, and the art is as relevant today as it ever was.

I wanted to capture that in a book: a beautiful artbook that would celebrate the craft, inspire new work, and preserve the history of the art that has lived on our mobile devices.

A history that is quickly fading. Many apps featured in this book aren't around anymore or have evolved — which means the work we've been doing to capture this artwork have borded on internet archaeology. If we don’t preserve these things now, while we still have the opportunity to, they will be gone forever.

We've also lived through a great period of sameness in design. A merging of styles and streamlining of tastes. Many apps and websites look similar today as the design industry has matured. Looking back at 10 years of vibrant playfulness in icon design serves as a great reminder that design can be anything we want it to be.

What's next?

I wanted to launch this campaign not when there was a distant promise of a product, but when the book was almost done. Here's what's still missing, along with the expected timelines.   

Finalising

The content for the book is 90% done and so is the layout. I'm keeping the door open for any last minute icon submissions and I also want to set aside some time to tweak the structure of the book and go over everything with my editor. I expect to finalise the book in late January.

Production

We're partnering with Narayana Press, a small printer in the countryside of Jutland with a long history of fantastic craftsmanship in artbooks. They have production capabilities ready for us in February & March.

Shipping

We expect to start shipping in April. Right now we're set up to handle shipping ourselves, but that will depend on the volume of the first production run.   

Book specs

The book will be around 150 pages. It’ll be printed on 170g heavyweight coated silk paper. The whole thing is wrapped in a cover printed on 150g heavyweight coated paper with holographic diffraction sliver embos. Complete with textile binding, headbanding, and separate endpaper. The finished book will be approximately 200mm x 250mm

Credits

Apart from the core team, many other people have helped make this book. The artists in the spotlights who have graciously shared their stories and insights.

The countless contributors who have submitted artwork and have jumped through legal hoops to sign agreements and make the highest quality printable versions of their icons available to us.

Also a special thanks to A For Ox, who produced the beautiful 3D renders used to portray the book in this campaign.

People have had an enormous portion of goodwill towards the project in general, and I’m thankful for all the help and encouraging words we’ve received along the way. I hope to make a product that each and every one of you will be proud to have taken a part in.