What led you into design?
Ever since I can remember, I've been fascinated by typography, shapes, and colors. I found the process of print production especially intriguing when, for example, a sticker with my own design came to life. The father of a childhood friend had a small print shop for promotional materials, we’d hang around there and sometimes he'd bring us large adhesive foils in various colors. We would draw and cut out logos of our heroes, like Superman, Batman, and Ghostbusters, and stick them just everywhere.
This interest accompanied me throughout my life. As I got into hip-hop culture, I quickly connected with graffiti. I met a whole range of artists, from breakdancers and graffiti writers to musicians and I loved the whole vibe and everyone was creative. I started designing artwork for various artists and concerts, including covers, posters, T-shirts, and flyers. I started to produce beats on a MPC2000 and later in Ableton Live. That made me become interested in both product and software design. I was fascinated by all the sound interfaces, the synthesizers, and the wicked effect boards.
But the turning point that fully ignited my passion for graphic design and especially icons was when I got my first iPhone (3GS) and dove deep into the jailbreak community. I was thrilled to design icons and interface elements in Photoshop and transfer them to my phone. I started to understand how interfaces work and from that moment on, I focused entirely on software and icon design. Thanks to a lucky invitation to Dribbble, by a fellow icon designer I landed my first gigs. Then more gigs and better gigs…and on and on and on.
I met Andreas Storm on that journey and we both became friends and colleagues at the same company working together in the design team. I don't know what it is but we are vibing. I mean we are really on the same track when it comes to icon design. So besides our day job, we’ve finally started our own little icon design studio. We are the iconists.
What does a typical day look like?
As a father of two kids, almost no day looks like the one before. We usually all wake up together between 6:30 and 7:00 am. We get ourselves and the kids ready, and then have breakfast together, which I think is really important. After that, either my wife or I drop the kids off at school or kindergarten. When I get back, it's usually around 8:00 am. I start my day off easy with some music and a quick check of Twitter and the latest news in the design world.
Next, I briefly check work emails and messages. If there's nothing urgent, I dive into my morning focus time before our daily check-in with the team, which is always at 10:30 am. The check-in usually lasts about 30 minutes. After the morning check-in, I usually respond to messages and share new work for asynchronous feedback.
During lunchtime, I either pick up the kids or start preparing the meal. We try to have lunch as a family whenever possible. Since I work fully from home and my wife works part-time, fortunately, we can manage this most of the time. After lunch, I usually get back into focus mode and try to wrap up any tasks or problems on the same day before winding down with the family in the evening. But even then, I often find myself working on side projects when the kids are in bed. It's just in my DNA.
What's your workstation setup?
Yes, I like keyboards...
Where do you go to get inspired?
I find inspiration in all sorts of things, even the most unlikely ones. There are symbols, icons, and shapes everywhere in the world. For instance, when I come across a chair or a radio with a particularly beautiful or distinctive design, I imagine how I could simplify its shapes into an icon. Simplification is the key!
Of course, I follow pretty much every well-known icon designer on the planet and eagerly devour every new set or icon that they release.
When collaborating with a client, I strive to draw as much inspiration as possible from their brand and design. The most important aspect of my work is to seamlessly integrate our icon styles with their brand identity.
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
The Ableton Note app has an excellent design because it balances form and function effectively. It's intuitive and easy to use, with a clean and simple interface. Most importantly, it's a lot of fun.
Overall, Ableton is known for its great design in both its products and branding and Ableton Note is no exception. Ableton has always remained true to the principle of "Form follows function". It was one of the first software companies to completely switch to flat design while still maintaining a strong visual design aesthetic. I think working with the first versions of Ableton Live still influences me to this day.
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
I'm most proud of our work on the new icon set for Twitter. It was a huge project in which we had to overhaul and renew the entire iconography of all apps and the website. We had exceptional freedom and time for experiments, which allowed us to design more concepts for icon systems than we ever did before. Our goal was to adapt the iconography to the new visual language that Twitter had recently introduced, while also optimizing the icons for a universal experience. We had to rethink existing metaphors and find better symbols to make the corresponding features recognizable with icons.
However, we also had to be mindful of symbols that had been around since the beginning of Twitter, as completely replacing them could have caused considerable irritation among users (and as we all know, there are quite a few of them!). Also working with such a talented and motivated team at Twitter was really refreshing. It felt like everyone appreciated the value of custom iconography.
What design challenges do you face at your company?
We aim to understand our clients' brand by examining the structure of their product interfaces and the context in which the icons are used. We always seek to find the essence of the brand so that we can reflect it in our icons and ensure perfect integration into the client's design.
It's still a challenge to make the most of the limited space for icons on small screens while achieving the best possible user experience despite technical limitations.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
It's hard to give advice because everyone is different. Generally, I've learned that you're best at what you're most motivated to do. Motivation can come from many things. For me, the craft of design is what motivates me. I immerse myself in it and lose myself in it, and I want to keep doing it over and over again. Others may draw their motivation from different things.
To become really good at what you love, you need focus, and that sometimes means being brave and not taking the safe path.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
Yes, sure. So we recently launched our first non-exclusive icon set for Figma called central icon system. We have used our experience from years of work on dozens of icon systems and thousands of icons to create a standard set with simple shapes and sizes. Each symbol has 30 variants in stroke width, border radius, line or filled style. All variants are easily accessible via the component properties right in Figma
Get in touch on Twitter @iconists or on our website www.iconists.co
We are most likely active on Twitter. Andreas Storm & Martin David
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