Floral and Insect Icons

Icon Case Study

I was asked to create a series of 12 icons inspired by a princess, floral, and insect theme. I started with sketches, then I created the vector illustrations and finally finished with color and placement. The icons needed to be elegant, subtle, and chic. The colors were soft tones and pastel to give them a "princess" mood.

Sketches

The goal was to create icons found in nature and had a princess feeling. I started by thinking of inspiration for the flowers and insects. I created a list of well-known princesses and then thought of flowers that could represent them. I sketched a variety of flowers to find the ones I liked. Next, I sketched out some insects that would fit the theme. I then created digital sketches.

Mockup Credit: href='https://www.freepik.com/psd/mockup'>Mockup psd created by freepik - www.freepik.com

Digital Sketches

Creating vector illustrations of each icon was very fun! I loved to play with the strokes and different fill options. During this section of the process, I made sure to listen to all the feedback I was given. I experimented with different stroke widths and fills. After many drafts, I discovered I liked having a stroke with no fill. I decided to stick with that concep for all 12 final icons.

The biggest piece of feedback I received was to put detail where I need it, but leave out what I don't know. This means that on some of the flowers, there is more detail to add to clarification, but others are more simplified. I wanted people to be able to identify the flowers and insects, but keep them as simple as possible. Consistency is key when creating icons, so they all needed to have close to the same amount of detail.

Strokes were another thing I received feedback on. They needed to be thick, but not overpowering. I wanted to avoid using any black lines as well.

I received feedback for specific flowers as well. For the hibiscus, there were too many lines that created pinched spacing. To fix this, I merged some lines and took out what wasn't needed. The final result is still recognizable and very clean to look at.

The last thing I received feedback on was tangents and white space. A tangent is when two things just barely touch or almost touch but they don't. Someone may not know they are looking at a tangent, but they will know that something is off and doesn't feel comfortable about the design. I had a few tangents with flower petals and the background color. It took a lot of effort to make sure I was not creating tangents amoung my icons. I either added white space or made the objects overlap even more to fix tangents.

The last few icons are what I decided to continue on with. I thought the splash of color behind the outline of a flower was very clean and elegant. The last step was placement and choosing a color scheme.

Color Palette

Finding a color palette was my favorite part of creating these icons! It was fun to mess with the colors and find one that fit just right with the fairytale theme. I wanted the stroke to be dark, but not black. So, I found a dark color that was close to black that had the contrast that I wanted. I ended up with a very dark purple (#3A3536) that I thought held true to the theme. I then built the other colors off the darkest. The light purple (#9A7E98) is a desaturated and lighter version of the dark purple. I then looked for a pink (#FFE3E7) and green (#ABC191) that matched the light purple tone. Overall, I feel these colors give the icons a fairytale look. I placed each icon in a row and aligned them. I loved the organized look that I got!

The Final Design

The following design is the final icons all placed together. They are based on a floral and insect theme that was inspired by classic fairytale princesses. I started with sketches, then created the vector illustrations, and finally finished with color and placement. Each of the steps helped me accomplish a cohesive design that fits the theme. The icons are elegant, subtle, and chic. The colors are gentle, soft, pastel tones that give them a "princess" feeling. Overall, this project was a lot of fun to do! I enjoyed creating flowers that reminded me of the princesses I loved as a child.