Learn these 7 tips to draw perfect icons

Hello everyone, I am Brian. Icons are the most basic and important part of UI design, helping people better understand the functional content. With the popularity of flat design style, the style of icons is becoming more and more simple. Although the graphics seem simple, they actually need to pay attention to some methods to accurately express the meaning. The following is the sharing of icon design skills:

Designing icons is an artistic process, and there are many skills that need to be paid attention to and cannot be ignored. Knowing how to design good icons is an indispensable skill for UI designers.

When I design icons, I personally follow these 7 rules:

Simple

An icon is a non-realistic representation. Don’t worry about the icon not being realistic enough, eliminate unnecessary details, use basic shapes and keep only the most basic parts to make the icon easier to understand.

Sometimes icons convey more complex meanings because they have more details, which is actually a style issue!

consistency

Throughout the icon system, your icons should maintain the same style to ensure perfect coordination. For example, the same shape, fill, stroke weight, size, etc. Make sure to have a grid, specifications, and styles that can be reused.

If possible, redesign these icons instead of mixing them with other icons of different styles.

Clarity

Design icons that are pixel perfect, especially when they are very small. This way the icon strokes remain sharp and not blurry. Watch out for half-pixel situations and try to avoid decimal points.

This will also help you keep your icons legible and clear as you scale them proportionally.

space

Make sure all shapes in your icon have enough space. Too little space between strokes will make the icon harder to understand.

Give at least 2px of negative space

Visual Adjustments

Make sure your icon looks correct and align elements appropriately to achieve visual balance.

Don't just focus on the parameters, use your eye to measure and move elements slightly if necessary.

Layout Specifications

Keep all icons the same size, define an adjustable padding range around the icons, and try to keep the elements designed within this range. Don't crowd all elements.

Icons can extend beyond this padding when they require additional controls.

Test verification

During the design phase, your icons may look perfect, but you still need to put them into the actual interface environment to test whether they are perfect and whether there are any details that can be adjusted.

Make sure each newly added icon appears consistent with the other icons.

Do you use any of these tips when designing icons? Let me know in the comments how you design icons.