http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/7-principles-of-effective-icon-design/
Icon design is a tricky proposition. It must be recognizable, simple, consistent within the context of what is around it, and sensitive to cultural considerations. Recently I led my grade 3 / 4 class through an inquiry into petroglyphs. We examined various glyphs from the Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Milk River, AB and began to imagine the stories they told.
To further illustrate the power of storytelling through this medium, I had my students design their own petroglyphs using Google Sketchup. They chose a family member and designed a series of icons that would represent that person's likes and dislikes. This was not an easy undertaking for some of these students. The idea that a story could be revealed through a series of abstract images was difficult for them to grasp. Yet, this is indeed what we are asking consumers to do when we design an icon for a specific product. Designers have very little real estate to work with and must convey a message within a considerable set of constraints.
"Since nothing is perfect, and, indeed, since even our ideas of perfection are not static, everything is subject to change over time"
The Evolution of Useful Things (Petroski, 1992)
Petroski's statement interests me in how it pertains to icon design. Not only will the form of consumer products evolve over time, but so will a iconic lexicon shift as well. We have an inventory of icon staples, such as those that denote trash bins on our desktops or male and female washrooms. Yet as demands shift in our pursuits of perfection, this will necessitate changes to iconic representation.
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