Jon Hicks on designing icons

Jon Hicks gave a talk a while back at Geek In The Park about icon design and he has just recently made his talk available in a variety of formats including slideshow PDF, audio recording, and HTML transcript. In addition, Jon has also included all of the links from the PDF (and his talk) in a convenient delicious account so that you can go through them and explore the research on icon design on your own time.

His PDF slideshow is particularly interesting because it talks visually shows how icons have been interpreted in real-life, the web, and on your PC desktop. There are some good lessons to take away from his presentation even if you aren’t personally invested in icon-creation. It’s just interesting for me to read in words what’s always sort of been a no-brainer in terms of keeping iconography consistent, informational, and enjoyable to look at.

So head on over to his website now to get your dose of design inspiration from the man who created the Firefox and Thunderbird icons.