The story behind Antarjaal app icons
Antarjaal apps are all about language and lifestyle. We believe the two are interconnected and have an influence on each other and together influence culture of the land they hail from. Culture drives and controls action by individuals within groups, based on wisdom accumulated over time to lead and maintain a healthy and purposeful life.
Spiritual leaders and seers have communicated wisdom via beautiful literary works that have by themselves become icons.
Kabir’s Dohas, Sarvagna’s Tripadis or Thiruvalluvar’s Thirukkurals are all examples of such wisdom which have stood the test of time and have captured hearts and intrigued minds.
We wanted icons of our apps to be a good contemporary spectacle of these traits that make them instantly recognizable with language, land or creator.
Colour Scheme
Each icon of our proverb apps use colour schemes based on the flag of the country or state. We’ve tried to be bold in the use of colours in a way that the brighter one is used copiously while one other is used to accentuate illustrations.
For apps based on spiritual wisdom we identified colours which we thought were relevant.
An earthy brown for Situational Kabir. White for Situational Subhashita. Saffron for Situational Gita. Yellow for Situational Sarvagna
For apps made to introduce children to vernacular alphabets we chose a colour that kids might enjoy – pink.
Design
Tulips for Netherlands, windmills for Denmark, Eiffel Tower for France – similar elements that are commonly associated are used to build a connection and enable our icons to standout and be recognizable among many others they sharethe screen with. The search to find such elements for each app itself has been very enriching.
While we used country or state specific illustrations for proverb apps we created illustrations based on the author or protagonist within the work for apps based on spiritual wisdom. Hence a
For alphabet apps we used the first letter from the name of the alphabet
The icon had to be a sign of what’s inside the app from both perspectives of content and design.
Situational apps are all flat in design and a user will see illustration and colours from the app icon extend into the app. Proverb apps make use of the same colour scheme for the included sticker pack and shareable digital cards while alphabet apps use a sticker format for each alphabet and the associated word.
So far, So good
We’ve taken some liberties and made exceptions at places where we couldn’t stick to guidelines we set for ourselves. At time the exceptions have been because design elements identified couldn’t fit retain necessary details or our inability to find a common cultural element to associate with the region.
Let us know what you think of them. Our twitter handle is “antarjaal”
