Design the Perfect Android Launcher Icon

The launcher icon is your app’s identity in the Android Market and in the launcher. It is a visual representation of your app to your users, and must be memorable and recognisable amongst a field of other apps installed.

Android give the following advice to designers:

The 3 goals of a launcher icon are

1. Promote the brand and tell the story of the app
2. Help users discover the app in the Android Market
3. Function well in the launcher

In a low density (ldpi) screen of 120dpi a launch icon is only 36px square, and those pixels become very important when meeting Android’s expectations of a Launcher icon. Medium density (mdpi, 160dpi) is 48px square, high density (hdpi, 240dpi) is 72px square and extra-high density (xhdpi, 320dpi) is 96px square.

Android suggest including a few pixels of padding in launcher icons to maintain a consistent visual weight with adjacent icons.

For example a 96 x 96 pixel xhdpi launcher icon can contain a 88 x 88 pixel sharp with 4 pixels on each side for padding.

However, when designing an icon, it is best to design at high resolution. This is good practise for all your icons, and it helps if designs are made on canvases that are multiples of the icon sizes (96, 72, 48, 36) – using a canvas of 864px square will cover these bases more than adequately. The size is especially helpful when Android Market requires a 512 x 512 high-resolution application icon through the developer console.

Use vectors when designing your icons and other elements for your app. Vectors are scalable, which is not only useful for your app, but also branding and marketing as the assets can be scaled upwards. Vectors may also be more helpful to you when aligning icons on small resolutions.

A launcher icon should be unique and memorable. Avoid squares where possible, as they are not memorable, and do not give a unique silhouette. Android advises that icons should:

…make use of the alpha channel, and should not simply be full-frame images.

Distinguish your icon with ‘subtle yet appealing visual treatment’. Don’t be tempted to make your icon a cropped view of a larger image, give your icon a similar weight to other icons and spend some time getting the design right.

The colour scheme for your icon should be influenced by your brand and match your app. Although you are designing at high resolution, keep the icons very simple, remembering they will be scaled down to a very small size. Simplicity will aid impact and memorability.

Don’t include the app’s name, as the name is always adjacent to the icon on screen. If you want to use 3D effects, go for shallow 3D and forward facing perspective as this will match other launcher icons including the native icons.

… reflect the implied lighting model of the launcher (top-lit)’

Your launch icon must be visible on any background, so be sure to test it on different background colours and patterns to check its visibility. Android suggest that if you use padding, you can add a subtle drop shadow to improve legibility.

Finally, when you save your icons, be sure to remove unnecessary metadata from your PNG assets for optimisation. Android will compress them, but its best practise to do your own optimisation before this stage.

Further Reading:

Android Developer Guide

Filed under: Android Applications, Android Games, App Design, App Marketing by Kate