System Replacement Icon Sets

Hello!

As well as sharing my use of Sketch for my Network Map, I also enjoy making System Replacement Icon Sets in Sketch.

Disclaimer: I’m not really an Icon Designer, but several years ago, I set about trying to make a System Replacement Icon Set in Sketch to see how it worked out (as well as to see whether maybe I could improve this area of my skillset).

The first result was a set called TWAIN which I released back then (named so because for the majority of the time, for some reason, I had Shania Twain on repeat :rofl:). The second version I called METAL which is a bit of a tribute to two of my favourite sets of all time, MINIUM and MINIUM² by RAD-E8 and I based the colours on different metals, from light to dark, and the third set I called VIVID because I went with a vibrant, colourful look.

Firstly, the vector tools in Sketch were incredibly useful here, particularly with folder shapes and creating symbols. Definitely the most enjoyable of all the tools I have tried for this kind of thing (even simple things like holding Shift while adding a point to centre it between two existing points and booleans are a godsend).

As well as that, I made use of pretty much all of the different component types in Sketch. Colour Variables, Layer Styles and Symbols to help simplify the creation and modification of the many different icons, styles and sizes.

It’s still preferred (at least by me) to create icons at each of the main sizes rather than making one large icon and scaling it down, the result of which is sharp icons at each size, and of course, the smallest size requires some further tweaks such as the shape of the icons) and things like Symbols and Symbol Overrides made tweaking and modifying those icons much easier.

Ultimately, I end up with a large number of frames to cover each of the sizes, styles and symbols (it saves exporting one set, adjusting the symbol, exporting and so on). Thankfully performance is very good considering the number of these frames :smile:

Even with this number of frames, I could use Symbol Overrides to simplify tweaking those icons, changing the Symbol on the folders, the colour, toggling pinstripes and on the METAL set, tweaking the various cutout options on the bottom of the folders.

The last part was to build some nice custom DMG’s. I designed these in Sketch and then put them together using DMG Canvas.

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Oh, I forgot to include some drive icons I made as well :slightly_smiling_face:

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