LEGO Mindstorms NXT Icons

One of the major differences between working for a product company and a consulting company (at least for web consulting) is the time scale between design and when the design goes live.

I had done some simple icon design work in support of the LEGO Mindstorms NXT support package for MathWorks Simulink over a year ago.  The idea was to provide icons that help identify each Simulink block which can be sensors or hardware, depending on the system model's need.  After my departure I had no idea if the icons were ever launched.

I just found out it did go live with the March 2012 release and grabbed the screenshots off of the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Support from Simulink product information page gallery.

There's also a page on MatLab Central: Simulink Support Package for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT hardware. It has a screenshot of the library too.

I'm so glad to finally see the work in the product and out in the world. These icons were created as a stop gap measure since we were resource and schedule constrained. I wasn't sure if they would be placeholder icons until someone else gets to them, or if they will actually go out with the product. 

I'm glad it's the latter. It's always such a joy to see your work out in the world. Here's a clearer look at each of the icons designed. 

Icon Design for Banana Republic

We come back from break to do an exercise in icon design. The premise is that main navigation categories on the Banana Republic website is being swapped out with icons. And off we go.

I created hand drawn sketches of the options and created a formal survey requesting rankings of first impression / visual appeal, clarity of meaning of each icon, and overall success of communicating the intended meaning (after those being surveyed took a stab at identifying each icon of each option first).

As with all design, not every option is good, so much hilarity ensued on some of the more ambiguous icon designs.

It was unanimously voted by those surveyed that Option C was the way to go.

So Option C is the concept that got graphically designed out. I did some general surveying on Facebook on how well these icons work, and they communicated what they needed to quite well, so I was happy that it worked out. :)