: Critique: How can I improve this realistic icon? Programmer here, working on an app by myself. I think I'm slowly improving with my images each month, but I've never taken a course in graphics

@Rambettina927

I thought instead of getting caught up in the types of snacks to show (because they vary in each location or culture) focus on portraying the "feeling" snacks give people when they desire a snack. Of course You want a camera to be readable in your icon so I kept that and I added a symbol of some smiling woman's red lips with her though licking ready to SNACK! lol - I did a ruff image for you to play off of. Of course this is just a real ruff idea, but since you want help, I hope this gives you some good ideas and gets you out of the box a little.



Enjoy! T

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@Margaret771

Boblet makes great points, particularly about losing the drop shadow. I beg to differ about using fruits as the snack, the cookie and orange are hard to decipher at small size. I suggest a doughnut...mmmm. Think of the archetypical doughnut, as seen on The Simpsons. Round, brown, with delicious pink frosting. Mmmmn. Definitely snack-y. You could drive the snack point home by taking a virtual bite of the doughnut.

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@Rivera951

i like the idea, and I am pleased with the subtle flash.

I second @conceptoftheday This is not very useful as an icon if you are going to use it as a tiny application icon. Think mobile. Here it is in 40, 80 and 120







The text in not visible in either, but this may not be a problem, depending on use. You then have to teach your users first, but people are pretty good at that.

An alternative would be to add the text underneath the camera, and loose the shadow.

I think you could make the cookie bigger, the idea of "camera" is obvious, you do not have to have the lens quite as thick.

The drop-shadow is a little on the heavy side, and considering the camera is very stylised, adding much depth is a little odd.

The cookie is, I think, a little too photographic in relation to the rest. Try searching for "cookie drawing" and see if you can find inspiration in simplified cookies.

Maybe a better idea would be to use something else entirely; something with simpler shape and bright colours and something easier to stylise. First springs to mind is a sliced kiwi or orange. Excuse crude mockup; this orange would have to be more stylised.



Anything round-ish would work, I think. Olives, fruit, berries...

(Here is a wacky idea.. if you use a fruit of some sort, you could have another fruit beside the camera. This might give a subtle 3D feel without that slightly heavy shadow).

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@Lee3735518

This is not much of an icon to me. A good icon should be more graphic; this image relies on illustrated and photographic elements which are not consistent in style.

The camera looks flat, the shadow is too spread-out and not realistic.

"SnackShot" text is too small compared to the whole image. The kerning of the text needs improvement.

I feel the whole thing needs to be redesigned.

Sorry for being harsh but I am just trying to be honest and helpful with my feedback.

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@Gonzalez368

Try giving your shutter more depth by making it a bit more cylindrical-shaped. Try and make it appear as though it were popping out. The more "realistic" it looks, the more likely people are going to want to buy it. It gives them a sense that they are buying a "thing" instead of an app.

Also add some white transparent glares around sharp edges. I mean more of a "shiny" gloss effect, similar to the gloss effect that gets added by default to apps in the App Store. For that you will want to create a new filled white layer to the shape you want glossy, and just decrease the opacity. I recommend using the elliptical tool to get the right shape.

Hope this helps, I'm new here!

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