Judging a series by its ICON (and design tips)

TristanJensen 2016-05-20 16:43:43 UTC #10

C for me.
The icon will generally have some influence on me but that's really only because I can see the kind of art ahead of time (unless of course I find out it doesn't which happens sometimes). But I wont judge it for more than that.
And often I wont even use the title either, mostly because 75% of the time I have no clue what it's supposed to mean to me (which is why I tried to make my comics titles as straightforward as possible and not something like "random" or "fishsticks" (not a real series name btw, you could actually use that here if you wanted)
Whether or not I read something is really not determined by anything other than my sudden desire to click on it (I've gone past a lot of comics here only to find them again later on and really like them)

nketchen 2016-05-20 16:57:57 UTC #11

For me it's A. But genre is pretty important to me. I want slapstick comics that inspire me to get into the right mood, and that can help me get better at drawing and writing. So if your comic isn't kind of similar to mine, I won't look. Unless you have a good scary series.

KSlinger 2016-05-20 17:53:01 UTC #12

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings either (and I hate to judge a book by it's cover, I'm sure they are all great in their own ways) but from a very 'marketing' perspective things like this that are really valuable for people to know. If you advertising doesn't work you're going nowhere without a hefty bit of luck.

apurviance 2016-05-20 18:20:12 UTC #13

Agreed, this type of review and input from other people is very important. In fact, after looking over they types of comics that attract my eye it's time to update my own icon. Some things that seem to work:

Clear faces without too much distraction
Some sense of personality or character relationships
Art style matches main comic.

Michelle 2016-05-20 18:45:47 UTC #14

THIS so much too. It's super disappointing when the icon/cover is done by a different artist and the actual comic has different or lower-quality art. I don't get why people think this is a good idea. At least for me, if the inside doesn't look like the cover, I feel kind of cheated and not inclined to look further.

Dozzer 2016-05-20 19:32:21 UTC #15

Me: oooo, cool-looking icon. click
Looks at first episode oh, art is WAY different, and writing is whatevs.
scrolls to next episode. 'Kay never mind. I've been misled. leaves

An appealing icon has been known to fool me twice. I'll look at a cute icon and wonder, "why haven't I already subbed to this series...oh, yeah. That's why." At that point, it just reinforces me from approaching it again.

I guess that sorta proves the importance of both icon and content. Come for the icon, stay for the content.

Panda007 2016-05-20 20:56:17 UTC #16

I'm super insecure with my icons, because it's so difficult to imagine what other people will find cool + what represents the comic well.

The matching of the icon and the comic art is a must. I hate when comic books have those beatiful covers and the comic art is different. If they simply put the comic art in the cover, my chances of reading it are bigger even if the art is not so nice.

For some reason the site is not letting me post my icons so here is the link for my profile, where you can see them. (any opinion about them would be welcomed)

UrMom 2016-05-20 23:19:29 UTC #17

I would lean more towards 'A', but kinda 'B'. When it comes to picking comics to check out, I normally go by how the style looks in the icon, or if the icon is just an emblem or something simple I click to see if there's a gem under a'-meh- presentation. It's nice when there's a clear glimpse of what the visuals have to offer (I do take the "comics are a visual medium" thing kind of seriously), but if it looks like an icon for a gag comic, I most likely won't check it out since I'm more of a story person no matter how good the icon looks.
If you really want your icon to stand out to me, you would either have to pick something that works really well with that little box, or the colours in the icon would have to look really good together... also I realize I'm more drawn to earth tones... and blue, lots of blue, particularly deep teals like chrysocolla.

Personally, I'm not the best with executing this type of stuff. Not very good with titles, not very good with knowing what section of my art makes a good icon, not very good with presentation in general. Then again, I'm content with what I got.

Now I'm just rambling, whoops!

sarrowsmith10 2016-05-20 23:46:47 UTC #18

This is pretty big for me. I'm shallow. I do judge a book by its cover a lot.. but yah. I'm mostly B tho. It's pulled from one of the covers, and it reflects the style and general mood of the comic. I tend to gravitate towards things like that.

My icon matches my comic pretty squarely, and I don't bog it down with titles or anything.

isaacfriedman 2016-05-21 02:04:50 UTC #19

Honestly, I doubt anybody is going to check out my comics based on their icons... but I can't find out how to fix them.

see? crap.

Greg_Dickson 2016-05-21 02:15:34 UTC #20

I've been having the same problem about the site not letting me post my icon in a thread. Is anyone also having the problem about not being able to change to a new avatar picture for the forums? I keep getting errors, so I'm stuck with my original uploaded image.

Dozzer 2016-05-21 02:22:33 UTC #21

Yup, there's currently issues uploading images in the forums. A quick work around would be to upload the picture to some other site (personal site, Facebook, imgur, etc.) and get that picture's direct link. Using the upload button, you can select whether to upload "from my device" OR "from the web". Paste the image link there in "from the web".

In fact, you can direct link an image directly from your Tapastic uploads. Whichever browser you're using, right-click the image and choose to open it in its own window or tab. The link above is the direct link you can use to embed the image into the thread.

Panda007 2016-05-21 02:31:07 UTC #22

ohh @Dozzer thanks!

Here are my icons, if anyone could judge them?

from Life of Panda

From Of Fairies and Ghosts

sorrelma 2016-05-21 04:01:51 UTC #23

i would love to learn more about what makes or breaks the design of an icon. most of my art expertise is self taught so i don't really know any objective rules on designing that sort of thing

when i first posted my comic i had this as my icon

but i was added as a staff pick and i PANICKED so i had to make an icon people might actually be willing to click on lol

heterodont 2016-05-21 05:58:57 UTC #24

Just like everyone else, I decide on whether or not I check out comics based on the art in the icon (or in otherwords I agree with A...)
The art of anything can make or break it for me, even if i find the story itself to be incredibly intriguing. It's a tad bit ridiculous how picky I am with the art style of something, crossing over into excessive. Ignoring how absolutely fickle I am with art, I like icons that, if it shows the mc, it shows their personality in some way? or conveys the tone of the story, if its long-form. Icons that are just headshots with a blank faced character are kinda bland IMO (this doesnt count SOLs or anything along those lines that are intentionally meant to be quick doodles or Other. this is mainly stories that are intended to be long form)

It's hard to say what really goes into a 'good' icon seeing as the space provided is too small to do anything that other General Design Rules would apply to (composition, values, etc.) frankly I just think as long as it Fits with the genre it should be fine, a silly doodle slice of life would be perfectly fine with a simplistic icon (as long as it matches the art style of the comic.) You can do little things here and there to make it stand out from others (such as coloring and etc) but beyond that, there is a Lot of limitations.

Speaking of limitations, I think also trying to deviate from the square resolution is a good way to catch some eyes? Kinda like the icon for A Better Place, which iirc immediately caught my eye as the series uses a circle instead of the square format.

Frankly, I just chose my icons based on panels that I really liked how they turned out like this one, for example, which is the icon for my main comic. Beyond just liking how the panel turned out, I think it also represents what the first few parts of the story are building up to lol...

Dozzer 2016-05-21 14:49:42 UTC #25

I'm not the best with color expert, but I can share my quick, blind, initial reaction when viewing the icons:

Life of Panda icon: Super simple, which I think is a good thing. It gives me a feeling of light-heartedness, and is very much a slice-of-life feel. It's a good representation of the content.

Of Fairies and Ghosts: Colorful, yet not in your face about it. 3 characters on the icon spell a long-form. I wouldn't consider this icon cluttered and the character color scheme immediately gives the feel of their 3 different personalities. Definitely not an action series, but having the characters facing different directions is a good touch. I will say that in a wall of icons, this may be tough to catch my eye, but that's always the toughest challenge of ANY icon.

Nice switch. The first icon did NOT match the series feel. After seeing the second icon, my impression switched to a more action-based fantasy. My eye is drawn to the black hand and his focus to the left. "What's he attacking? Let's click to find out." Very earthy colors. My one critique would be that there's a bit of empty space between his hand and head. I take it that this was snipped from a pre-existing graphic? Maybe try filling in the space a little more, even if it means adjusting the hand more into view since it's sorta cropped off. (Now that I think about, there's quite a bit of empty space in my own icon ^_^;)

Putting it out there, a good rule of thumb on this thread would be to refrain from giving negative feedback on someone's specific icon unless explicitly asked for. This is to prevent someone from pulling a random creator's icon and pointing out its flaws or making someone an example of "what's a bad icon". My initial post is me putting myself out there, so of course I welcome feedback for myself ^_^

jmhenry 2016-05-21 18:35:01 UTC #26

I'll say B, mainly because for me, keeping it simple has worked out fairly well, especially on the webcomic list(It's literally just the title of the comic on a white BG). I'm sure a great icon is important in some way, but with no metrics to track its effectiveness(I'm a numbers guy), I just feel like it pays to keep it simple when everyone else is trying to impress.

miseryhunting 2016-05-21 19:17:02 UTC #27

When I mentioned this before, my concern was the colours are very light and the contrast low. The lineart is also not black, so if the size is smaller I personally might have struggled with seeing anything other than 3 figures.
The good thing about it is it gives you the right idea about the art in the series and it effectively communicates t has 3 main characters.
You can improve it by:

increasing the contrast
zooming in on one of the figures/ or designing a new icon/ so it's clearer
bringing more dark into it (like black linear) if it's comfortable for you

Anyways, this is only a well-wishing advice, feel free not to take it if you fit it doesn't fit you or your series.

Panda007 2016-05-21 19:36:00 UTC #28

Thank you for the advice! I'm going to change it now.
Feel free to check out the new one!

Rabbit 2016-05-21 20:02:56 UTC #29

When I made the icon for my comic (pictured below) I was mainly just thinking that I wanted something really bright, like you said. I've noticed that, at least for myself personally, someone could have an amazingly well-drawn icon in b&w or dark colors, but I won't find it eye-catching, yet someone could have a mediocre drawing in primary colors and I always see it. And while I'm no expert, I think my icon's pretty good, because whenever my comic is updated it gets a lot of clicks from people seeing it in the 'fresh' section. Also, I think you're so right about the background being filled with a bright color instead of just being white. Great post XD