Looking for an icon for my app

[Henning]

Hey guys,

The app I'm working on now is almost done, and it (along with the pricing issue, see my other post) is really holding me up right now. The problem is, I can't afford to pay a thousand dollars, or even half that, for an icon. Does anyone know a good oDesk (for example) artist who makes great icons that are actually affordable for people like me who have a wife and three kids to support? :)

Thanks for any help,

henning

[Simon MacDonald]

I've got the same problem with an app I'm working on as well so I'd
love to hear about this as well.

Simon Mac Donald
http://hi.im/simonmacdonald

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "OCocoa" group.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ococoa/-/f92XeteHUBwJ.
> To post to this group, send email to oco...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> ococoa+un...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/ococoa?hl=en.

[Matt Davis]

99 designs

Sent from the Virtustructure

[Rick Fillion]

iOS app icons don't need to cost a lot.  I've had really nice ones made for us for a couple hundred bucks in the past.  I'd only pay >500$ for a Mac app icon, where the user might actually one day see the 512x512 version.

There are a lot of good designers on Dribbble.  Contact a couple. :)

Rick

[Henning]

Yeah, I've been looking at 99 Designs. I've been looking over iOS icon design projects that are currently underway, and checking out the designs that are being submitted. There seems to be several gotchas that I noticed.

1. It seems that the results are decidedly hit and miss. Some are great, and the user ended up with a great icon. But others, not so much.

2. It seems that guaranteed contests are the way to go. (Where you guarantee that you'll buy someone's design.) But I can't put hundreds of dollars on the line in the hopes that someone may come up with a design I like. And it looks like the guaranteed contests are the ones that attract more artists (of course).

3. There seems to be some poaching. At least one (very nice) icon I've seen on the site has a background (which is a big part of the design) from a different artist I saw on Dribbble. I don't want to buy a design just to find a copyright claim in my inbox two weeks later.

On Monday, 28 May 2012 14:02:58 UTC-4, Matt D wrote:

99 designs

[Henning]

I've contacted about four or five of them in the last four days. So far only one has replied, and his price was $1300. I can't afford that.

[Henning]

If anyone has the name of a good, affordable, icon designer, I'd love to hear it. My email address is henningh[at]gmail[dot]com, if you don't want to post it publicly.

henning

[Jean-Pierre Simard]

Before we hired our resident Creative Director @ MBS, I contacted some of the best mobile UI designers I could find on Dribbble. Here's a list of their names, contact info, Dribbble portfolios and their rates converted to CDN $. I interviewed a few of them over Skype and Nicolas Jablonsky looks like a great bet if you have a low budget.

Find the Google Spreadsheet here. Feel free to add more designers and information if you'd like.

Finally, we've become quite adept with mobile UI/UX here at MBS and if ever you'd like feedback on your projects or have a slightly larger one in mind, feel free to drop by; we love giving back to the community!

Good luck!

Jean-Pierre Simard

Mobile app developer, Magnetic Bear Studios

twitter: @simjp

web: www.magneticbear.com

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Henning <henn...@gmail.com> wrote:

If anyone has the name of a good, affordable, icon designer, I'd love to hear it. My email address is henningh[at]gmail[dot]com, if you don't want to post it publicly.

henning

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OCocoa" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ococoa/-/9i5Bhl8X-RMJ.

[Henning]

Thanks, JP, I really appreciate it!

henning

[Dave Poirier]

Sounds like you need to find a student designer that it out to prove himself.

Dave Poirier

ekscrypto / instinc

On 2012-05-28, at 2:00 PM, Henning wrote:

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OCocoa" group.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ococoa/-/f92XeteHUBwJ.

[K Panton]

Henning,

I'm a lurker on ococoa, only been to one ococoa gathering (last year) and happened to see your email.

I'm not a pro designer but I have a talent that may or may not be useful to you, so if you'll take a minute to send me a list of:

- 3 nouns
- 5 adjectives
- maybe a verb or two

that you think represent your app/potential clients/app benefits/appSpace/etc., I'll see what I can come up with. This is background task for me - i.e. keep looking elsewhere - but I'll try to get something to you. If nothing else, it will be applied practice for me.

Cheers
Ken

--

[Henning]

Well, I've decided to host a project on 99desgins.com. I decided to look into this option first because it was the least expensive. I have a $150 design project up, and so far the results are pretty good. I already had an idea in mind, and one artist in particular is getting pretty close to my vision for the icon. I was hoping for more submissions by different artists, but maybe the fact that the competition is constrained by my heavy-handedness is putting off some people.

[Henning]

The design contest is going well. I've narrowed it down to five designs. I'd be happy with any of the five, and I'm especially pleased with three of them. This is going to be difficult ...

[Henning]

Just a quick update. I ended up buying two icons, because they were both so good. I may use one in a different project, or do some A/B testing with these icons. We'll have to see. But either way, I'm happy with what I got. The quality was quite impressive.