May 22, 2013

Pocket Lists icon update

Pocket Lists
The Pocket Lists app icon was updated — again.

A couple of months ago, we received a notice from Cultured Code, the maker of wonderful Things prodictivity app, that Pocket Lists 3.0 icon looked similar to theirs. Indeed, icons really looked similar:

Pocket List and Things

That was not intentional move from our side to design the icon as a copy of Things — it was the evolution of the Pocket Lists app in which we maintained common look of both app's internal user interface and the icon. When there was denim texture in the app, there was denim on the icon, and when denim went away in version 3.0, it was removed from the icon either.

Pocket Lists icons and UI comparison

When introducing that 3.0's flat-blue-and-white icon, I was not thinking about any other similar icons of apps published on the App Store. I was thinking merely about making the icon simpler, more clear and prominent. I did not realize not even that I "copy" other app's icon, but also that during the chase for simplicity, I would make the icon loose all it's uniqueness it had in the very beginning. I agree: those were my mistakes.

Here is the entire app icon evolution timeline:

Pocket Lists app icon evolution

So now the app comes with a brand-new icon. The new icon was designed to reflect app's ability to sync with the iOS's stock Reminders app and app's to-do list nature.