Big Improvements

• A critical part of designing app icons is seeing them in the context of a home screen. To do this, previously the course relied on Prepo—a 3rd party iOS-only app, which cost $6.99. Now, the course includes an innovative Sketch template that allows an app icon to be previewed inside various mockups—for both iOS and Android (see the all-new Section 8).

• We’ve got Android designers covered now too. The updated curriculum includes projects, tools, workflows, and resources for both Android and iOS.

  • Project files include both iOS and Android app icons (for both Adaptive and Legacy icon standards).

  • Videos cover Android “live device preview” solutions (alternatives to Sketch Mirror).

  • Equivalent Android workflows and tips. When workflows are different between Android and iOS, the videos cover both.

  • Custom templates for app icon shapes and home screen previews include Android assets alongside the iOS ones.

  • Resource sections include additional links that are relevant to Android app icons (and even more are coming soon).

• Many videos now explain the reasoning behind abstract design decisions. For example, the new More Advanced Visual Design section covers recommends a workflow for achieving pleasant colors and gradients.

• A new section has been added at the end of the course, called “Next Steps,” which recommends other courses and free articles to learn next. It also includes a new app icon project for students who want to continue practicing what they’ve learned. A Sketch file of the finished project is provided.

• All videos now include chapter markers on the video player’s timeline. These chapter markers make it easy to skip to a specific part of a video.

Smaller Improvements

• Better and longer explanation about pixel perfection, featuring custom animations and clearer examples (Section 10).

• Better explanation of how app icons need to be adapted for different platforms, OS versions, and pixel densities. With a new custom animation sequence, this now takes up the first few minutes of Section 10.

• A brief explanation of Symbols, in order to understand how to use the new App Icon Home Screen Template (Section 8). Symbols remain a deeper focus of the next course—User Experience Design in Sketch.

• Export overview covers the basics of Slices, to assist in the workflow for Android Adaptive icons (Section 5).

• Export overview covers WebP file format (Section 5).

• Improved workflow when combining vector shapes on the camera icon. Now it relies on the Flatten function, but with a unique workaround. The previous workflow occasionally caused Sketch to improperly render the camera icon’s sub-shapes.

• Better explanation of the 2 Distribute shortcuts at the top of the inspector, featuring a custom animation and mentioning Sketch’s new warning about uneven vs. sub-pixel positioning (Section 9).

• Better explanation of the difference between the Scale function and resizing layers, featuring a custom animation (Section 10).

• Inclusion (in the final project file) of a version of the camera app icon at iOS’s 20×20 notification size. With this example, students interested in icon design can observe how icons need to change at super small sizes.

• Better explanation of how to use gradients to simulate lighting on curved objects, with a custom animation (Section 9).

• The videos now show an animated preview of important resources, rather than simply referring to them in speech.

• Apps running on a mobile device (such as Sketch Mirror) now appear as an overlay on top of the Mac’s screen recording.

• Improved speed and pacing throughout all videos—slowing down in complicated parts, and speeding up in repetitive, obvious parts.

• Plus over a hundred other small improvements to the curriculum, videos, projects, cheat sheets and resources—much of it based on student feedback. Thank you, students!