Phoenix Design

Without Words

Smart App Icons for Android

Icons are a language everybody understands. In the world of mobile and smartphones, icons are playing an ever more important role. For one of our clients, we have done comprehensive research on App icons, and based on our findings, we have created the next evolutionary step for the app icons we know today.

With seemingly simple methods we have breathed new life into the icons, whose concept had remained unchanged for several years.

Android System

Icons side by side with Google icons

The individually designed App Icons appear side by side with third-party App Icons and the pre-installed Google icons, e.g. Gmail, Calendar or Hangouts.

That's why our Smart Icons are based on the Google Material Design Grid, clearly showing parallels in terms of visual design.

This ensures on the one hand that the home screen appears as if all of a piece, on the other hand the icons still sport their own design language.

Smart-Glimpse

Speeding up the workflow

In order to integrate the icons into the user flow, we developed that certain twist to create a pleasant user experience.

Information that's strictly speaking only available after opening the application is now being displayed right in the App Icon itself.

This avoids opening the app unnecessarily, thus saving time. The calendar icon shows immediately how busy the day will be; the timer icon shows the running timer at a glance.