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Speyer780

: How can I spice up my flat iOS icons? I'm making an icon for a speed reader app for the iPhone. These are more or less the designs I've been toying with: Looking at them though, I just

@Speyer780

Posted in: #Applications #Icon #Ios #Iphone

I'm making an icon for a speed reader app for the iPhone. These are more or less the designs I've been toying with:



Looking at them though, I just find they're a little boring. With the iOS 7 paradigm they seem to fit okay, but I just want them to be a little more exciting.

To illustrate what I mean, I really like the icon for Lumo:



It's very simple, similar to mine, but has a lot more character to the icon. I only don't like the long shadow thing.

How can I spice up my flat iOS icons? (I've tried really hard to avoid the word "pop" :))

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@Rambettina927

I think what you're looking for is very similar to this recent question:
How to achieve a gradient in adobe illustrator

The issue is that a lot of what seems flat in the latest UI trends really isn't.
There are subtle gradients and hard edged shadows all over the place.

As I noted in the comments, I think the main thing you are noticing is how your very nice icon separates from the button shape: Yours looks like it's sitting within the shape, the Lumo example appears to float or protrude above.

On your green background you could


Add a subtle top to bottom gradient
Overlay that gradient with a hard-edged glass highlight
Add a hard-edged shadow dropping from the book at about 45°


Just those simple changes will have you much closer to your envied example.

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