Ynab 3 Application Icon (Personal Budgeting Software)

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT US:

You Need a Budget 3 (YNAB 3 for short) is the successor to our flagship software product YNAB Pro. The YNAB software and methodology is designed to help people manage their money by budgeting effectively.

HERE IS WHAT WE NEED:

With YNAB 3, we really want to exceed our customers' high expectations. It is being written in Adobe AIR, and will thus run on Windows or Macs. We want our app to look great, and feel right at home with other well-designed Mac or Windows software. When someone uses YNAB 3, we want them to feel pleasantly surprised that finance software can be simple, and we even want them to be occasionally delighted with the user interface. Great icons are going to help us reach our goals.

For context, you can see some screenshots and a video of the YNAB 3 budget screen here:

http://www.youneedabudget.com/2009/ynab-... (This is using temporary icons of course at the moment)

The vast majority of the interface has been specified and/or implemented. Now, all that remains from a design standpoint is the Application Icon.

I have prepared a set of annotated comps which shows each required icon in its proper context, and gives a bit of extra information about how the icon will be used. Here is the list of icons with their corresponding size and the file in which you can find them:

Application Icon Description:

The application icon will be the richest and most detailed, and we'd like it to be fantastic enough that we can really feature it in high res on certain screens of our website. This icon should feel at home on a user's Mac doc.

Here is our current YNAB Pro application logo: http://screencast.com/t/w6Z0aX3aZY

It draws upon elements of our YNAB logo (http://screencast.com/t/1zut7PV5agd), which I think is a good thing.

I think it does a pretty good job of being vibrant. I think that drawing upon the Y and the tree in our current logo is a good idea. I am open to simply taking this icon and adding depth/richness to it like the icons I linked to above. I am open to ideas if you get inspired by looking at the app in the sneak peek (linked above).

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS:

Current and future customers looking for a simple, effective personal budgeting/financial management application.

WE LIKE THESE DESIGNS:

As for design guidance on the bigger/detailed application icons, we think that the application icons of these sites are fantastic:

http://www.atebits.com/

www.pixelmator.com

http://www.panic.com/coda/

http://www.artua.com/view/icons/name/pri...

http://www.madebysofa.com/#products

In general, the above application icons are rich, colorful, and often detailed enough that I feel like I can reach out and touch it. They have an element of delight.