10.02.01mon
Jot Icon
This is an icon for our latest product called Jot. We had the product about 90% complete and still had no name or icon when I woke up at 3 am with an idea for both. I’ve shared a couple final icon designs here before, but this time I thought I’d share the design process a bit more.
When I had my early morning epiphany, I thought about my old typewriter which sits on the shelf in the hallway outside my bedroom (similar to the photo here). I thought to myself, this is perfect... we’ll use the look of the old typewriter and the name, “Jot”. I’ll have a sheet of paper come out of the typewriter with the word “Jot” typed on it. I wanted to design it right then, but I wasn’t sure Craig would go for my idea, so instead I lost a few hours sleep.
As soon as Craig woke up and approved the idea, I sketched it on a sheet of paper. Funny side note, my scanner was acting up so I had to use my digital camera to take a photo of the sketch instead!
From there I started making the pieces of the icon as shapes. These are the numerous shapes and layers on top of the sketch.
One thing that was difficult for me on this design, is that I am an exact pixel kind of guy. Typically I setup 1,000 grids. The grids line up to the rulers, and everything line up to the grids. On this particular piece, I decided to try to build it without any grids at all. It was a fun challenge to change my usual habits.
After the shapes were put into place, I had to make each piece look real. I can’t explain exactly how I did that, but here’s the finished product.
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