Interview with Anton Zykin and Dmitry Tsozik from Softfacade

I got a chance to interview some really talented icon designers, Anton Zykin and Dmitry Tsozik from Softfacade. In the previous blog post, I asked for you to suggest interview questions. Many of you posted questions, so I had to pick the best ones, which I have based this interview on.

Jun. 26th 2010 | by Martin LeBlanc | 0 comments

Hi Anton. Can you tell us about yourself - where you live and how you got into design?

Anton: I live and work in St.Petersburg, Russia. I started SoftFacade in 2004 when I was a student at Technical university. Initially, SoftFacade wasn't a design firm. Together with my friend, Pavel, we designed and developed shareware software and I was in charge of icons and graphic design. Suddenly, we realized that design business can give us much more profit so we decided providing interface and icon design services to software developers. Now, Pavel holds UX director position at SoftFacade.

Before answering the questions i should notice that I'm not longer designing icons. We've got the team of the best icon and interface designers (carefully picked from different Russian cities) working together under one roof at our St. Petersburg office. The Design team is led by Dmitry Tsozik, our Creative Director and talented icon designer. Now I manage all our projects and sometimes do creative direction as well.

Are you self-taught or went school?

Anton: I'm 100% self taught, both in design and business. I studied Chemistry at the Technical university, that might sound weird but absolutely true. First i got into icon design when we started developing our first application and needed icons for it. That was my first experience in icon design.

For how many years have you been designing icons?

Anton: I've been designing icons since 2004 until 2009. Now, I'm too busy with business development and all icon designs are made by our rockstar team led by Dmitry Tsozik, who was our leading icon designer in 2007-2009.

Do you have an 'eye for design' also outside the world of computers? I'm talking about hand-drawings and so on.

Anton: No, i never made hand-drawings because i'm not an artist. Some of our designers are good at hand-drawings and CG art, but the most of our work made on a computer and related to interfaces.

You work at SoftFacade now - what is the story of the company and what is your responsibility there?

Anton: When i started a company back in 2004 I was the sole person in charge all of design work. I designed a lot of icons, interfaces and websites for various apps. But SoftFacade is growing too fast and now we have 21 people which do all those awesome designs.

I'm in charge of all relationships with clients, project management and finances. Moreover, I design SoftFacade's website and work on marketing strategy. For example, two weeks ago I created the new promo page http://WOW.softfacade.com which generated a lot of buzz around SoftFacade.

What made you decide to focus on designing icons?

Anton: The decision of focusing on icon and interface design came to us after we realized that there are only few companies on the market who design good icons. A lot of firms are doing website designs and print designs but when it comes to icons you can count the companies by fingers. It's quite a small niche and we don't have a lot of competitors.

How do you experience the icon design niche has changed over the years?

Anton: Generally, icons quality is getting better day by day. Icon designers get more into iPhone and Mac app icons, that requires more advanced design skills.

Icon design process

Anton: These questions are answered by Dmitry Tsozik, our Creative Director.

Let's talk a little about the process of designing icons. Can you explain in short steps how you start and finish an icon?

Dmitry: Nothing special here: ideas, sketches, research and rendering. The Idea, or metaphor - is what all that icons are about. The process of creating metaphors is a theme for a big article, so I only can sum it up now: clean, recognizable metaphor is a good one.

Then we need to present ideas to a client. Hand-drawn sketch works best. Our designer Anna creates so beautiful and soulful sketches sometimes our clients think they are ready icons. As for me personally, I prefer a 'pencil and wartercolor' style.

After approving sketches a research part begins. Our designers dig the Internet for references, study objects and materials they create. We use 3D tools a lot. It helps to create a perfect perspective, and learn a behavior of a material. Actually I can ask one of designers 'What are doing now?' and hear 'Studying how the glass refracts the crashed ice in Mochito in a daylight with a little help of a soft-box.'

And all that work ends in a final rendering of an icon. We create all our icons in vector in Photoshop.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Dmitry: Nature. It is the most beautiful thing human eyes can see. How the light photons bump from the skin? How that bubbles in beer go up in a line? How that popular soft-box gloss can be created in a real photo studio?

Actually I've got many sources for the inspiration. Industrial design, especially Apple products, Porsche, Audi and Pininfarina design studios. Weapons design is one of the best man's created things you can get inspiration from.

And video-games industry too. It is where many visual design trends come from. I'm a big fan of Nintendo games, you can find a lot of genius design decisions there.

Do you sketch icons before designing them on the computer?

Dmitry: Sure, as I said before, we create a lot of sketches. We'll show best of them on our website soon. Final sketches are drawn on the computer with Wacom tablets. But our designers sketch on the paper a lot too. Sketches by Anna Myagkova:

How did you come up your style of icon design?

Dmitry: Our style is a child of a technology and clients' demands. You know, if your client want that fancy gloss or brushed metal look, you should study the object and render the best possible gloss or material.

At the beginning we were the followers of the visual design trends. But any trend can change, and the best way is either predict new trends or even better set the new ones yourself. We always experiment with materials and ideas to find something new.

For example, we're trying to avoid that Windows Media Player gloss look, so we need something new, something better. So, if we need glass, we find the way how else glass can look cool. If we need brushed metal, we try something else, like Apple's anodized aluminum.

What's the hardest part of designing icons and which icons are very hard to make?

Dmitry: Creating metaphors. No doubt. If you can create cool metaphors, you can become a great icon designer. And it is really hard to make an icon when you are not sure about something you do. It may be the style - if a client can't tell what he want. It may be some technical aspect.

So we try to avoid such situations. That's why we spend a lot of time on researches and studying the world.

Approximately how long does each icon you design take?

Dmitry: If you're about 512x512 icon - from one day to couple of weeks.

What do you do when you are stuck for ideas?

Dmitry: We go to our 'relax room' and play some video-games =) Actually, being able to bring a decision in any situation is a part of my job. So if our designer is stuck for ideas, he or she asks me. If I have this problem, I try to clear my mind and make things easier. Or ask Anton, he always helps me with some new ideas. Tools

And just how do you get to that pixel perfect 3D look? I hear it's all in photoshop, is it true?

Dmitry: All our icons are vector Photoshop files. And as I've said we use 3D apps a lot for perspective and materials references. Some icons has been fully modeled and textured in 3D, than re-rendered with Photoshop in vector.

I prefer to use my 3D scene with light and soft-boxes, some glossy materials and floor to catch perfect shadow. Sometimes it is enough to use Adobe Illustrator 3D tool, this thing is very cool.

What's your favorite Photoshop tool?

Pen tool, Smart Objects and Layer Styles.

Why do you use Apple products for your work?

Dmitry: They are the best. We can't afford spending time on OS managing or stuff like that.

And personally I believe if you want to create beautiful things you should make your workspace and environment around you beautiful first.

Would you ever share an icon PSD for neighboring designers to study?

Dmitry: Yes. I really want to write a tutorial, and it will include all things great tutorial should include.

When will this tutorial be released?

Dmitry: As soon as we have enough time for it, hopefully in August-September. Last questions

Any tips for newbies in designing icons? As, in my opinion, icon design isn't as easy as it seems and requires a lot of thought behind each and ever single icon.

Dmitry: Always be 100% sure what you are doing. Drawing a shadow - be sure it is perfect. Creating a gloss - be sure it is not just a random gloss, but a real reflection of a real light source. Study the world around you. Be a nice guy =)

What is the answer to life?

Dmitry: Everybody knows it is 42px.

Photo of us (left to right: Dmitry, Anton)