In fact, this kind of skeuomorphic effect was so ingrained into the aesthetic of iOS that a gloss effect was applied to third-party app icons by default at the system level - only through a configuration setting in Xcode could a developer opt out of this visual effect. Making an icon for a brewery? Make it look like a glass of beer: an overflowing froth of bubbles, amber coloring, and some condensation on the glass for good measure. Designing an icon representing a book? Make it look like a book: threaded stitching around the edges, a textured leather cover, and individually-visible sheafs of paper. The aesthetic used textures, gloss, and vibrancy abundantly.
#XCODE ICON SIZES IOS SOFTWARE#
Some attributes of iOS app icons have evolved through the years to adapt to hardware and software improvements, but the core design constraints for creating an iOS app icon have remained unchanged: a square canvas, opaque colors, and masked corner radii (applied at the system level).įor the first few years, icon designs were “skeuomorphic”: an attempt to imitate real-life, three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional screen. While competing mobile OS platforms have long provided more artistic freedom in the canvas for designing application artwork - freeform shapes, transparency, etc - iOS proves true freedom and creativity comes not from taking away constraints but by imposing them. Perhaps propelling its ubiquity, the shape of the icon was literally embedded on the iPhone hardware for years, serving as an affordance to communicate how users get back to their home screen - “press here to go to that screen with all the apps in this shape”. Since the iPhone’s public reveal in 2007, iOS applications have been primarily identified, embodied, and personified by a single piece of artwork: the app icon, a square piece of artwork with masked corner radii. Put a couple of them together on a grid, and you begin to see how recognizable the shape is. Like a logo, it has come to be associated with a single brand. I am republishing it here on my blog (with slightly modified imagery) for posterity’s sake.
The following was originally written by me and published as a chapter in “The iOS App Icon Book”.
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