Songpocket design: the app icon and name
(I recommend reading Waiting to ask for permission first.)
Neil Sardesai drew Songpocket’s icon. Thanks, Neil!
I’m about to brag extensively about how great this icon is. Blame Neil.
One of my early requirements for the icon was “no music note”. I’m sick of music notes because every freaking music app uses them, despite never displaying sheet music.
I had already settled on the name “Songpocket”, so we both had the idea of putting some embroidered “musical symbol” on fabric. That would have fun textures, too. But we couldn’t think of a great symbol. We thought a “play” icon was boring.
Neil came up with earphones hanging out of a pocket. I loved it because it was different and suited “Songpocket”.
At this point, I have to explain why I chose the name “Songpocket”, because the icon matches it.
It’s instantly spellable. Made-up names and puns are hard to tell people about because you have to explain them. To tell someone about Songpocket, all you have to say is “song pocket, one word”. I confirmed this when I told a friend to check out Songpocket’s website: I said, “go to song pocket dot app”, and they got it instantly.
It’s self-explanatory. You instantly know what kind of app “Songpocket” is.
It’s cute. It reminds me of “pocket monsters”, aka Pokémon, and also of “1,000 songs in your pocket”.
After we settled on the concept, we had to decide how exactly the pocket would look.
We considered the most iconic pocket shape, which is this pentagon that jeans use for their back pockets.
But I was hesitant about putting this on an app icon, because it would be an “SOB”, which is what flag design fans call a certain crappy style of flag: a “seal on a bedsheet”. For app icons, that’s generally okay, but it can be a little boring.
We also tried a front jeans pocket, which is also pretty recognizable. It reminded me of Steve Jobs introducing the iPod Nano by pulling one out of his change pocket.
But it looked too busy, and we would have had to use 3 different fills just for the background.
But something here stuck out to me: the rivet directly on the left edge made it look like the fabric was attached to the icon itself.
That reminded me of something my college freshman art teacher said. Usually I thought he was full of shit, but I agreed with him on this, which is something he berated me for: don’t just plop a drawing into the middle of your canvas. Play with the edges. Make them interact with your subject in an interesting way.
So we ended up with our final design, where the icon itself is the pocket.
Most app icons just have a drawing on them, and that’s okay. But some make the icon itself part of the drawing, and that’s more interesting. Those include Notes, Maps, Fantastical, and, I’m happy to say, Songpocket.
This icon pushes my buttons on a bunch of levels.
First, it isn’t just a piece of art cropped to a rounded square; it’s a piece of art that can only be an app icon. That means it’s taking advantage of its medium.
In turn, it’s an icon that can only be for a music app, and specifically one named “Songpocket”. It feels inevitable, which is the mark of a great design, even though discovering great designs is anything except inevitable.
Even the colors feel inevitable. White on dark blue with gold accents is eye-catching, and we almost didn’t think about what colors we wanted.
Last, the metaphor is perfect. When you see this icon, you wonder what’s in the pocket, and with earphones in it, it probably contains songs too. And to tap the icon is to say, “take me to where the songs are.”
I’m really happy with Songpocket’s icon, and I didn’t draw it, nor did I come up with all the ideas in it. So thank you, Neil!