Icons have always been found highly useful in limited digital environments and in diagrams, maps and other forms of visual communication. As a visual shorthand, it can label, inform, and aid navigation quickly and effectively in minimal space. At Think Design, we stepped back to discover how icons have been used from the earliest desktop days – in a pursuit to build on our current understanding, looking to appreciate and learn from the past, and look at the future informed by a lens of insights.
Stephen Dickens - Tushar Krishnan & Hari Nallan - August 2020
At Think Design, we created 4 separate infographics, each one providing a brief introduction into the iconography of each respective decade; 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Let us look at how the last decade played a role in transforming how iconography has evolved until today.
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The 1990s – A bandwagon of colors, gloss, and dimensions
The 90s saw operating systems of Windows 3 and OS 2 using grids and consistent iconography patterns. While Macintosh had started experimenting with shades of grey to add to its current palette, Susan Kare worked on the first aesthetically designed icons for Macintosh that was released in 1984. Moving away from the trend of outlining, shining icons with indigo edges, 3D icons were also introduced by some companies. The next few trends included the addition of space illusion, vector icons with steely borders and transparency masks with isometric designs, adding to the overall variety of iconography landscape.
