For the Communication Arts Interactive Annual #21, I was asked the question “What are the challenges or joys you face when creating an icon set?”. The answer had to be short, so the angle I took was…
We’re getting into very exciting territory with regards to what technology we have to play with! SVG is finally becoming widely adopted and with it the opportunity to provide scalable and responsive icon sets. Higher pixel density screens will also mean spending less time making artwork conform to a pixel grid. The days of fuzzy bitmapped icons are almost over! Until then, the challenges are in providing fallback options, and getting decent SVG export and optimisation in apps like Adobe Illustrator.
I didn’t get time to explain what responsive icons were (maximum 75 words), but it was nice to get asked to be in such a venerable tome. (The photo didn’t get the proper credit though, which was by Jeremy Keith)