The Accidental Icon (If at first you don't succeed....hire a pro)

Recently, during a conversation I was having with our graphic designer, I shared with him the story of how our SPR icon was created. So, I figured I'd share it with you.

Operating on a tight budget, I made the decision to design the logo myself. I knew what I wanted--a smartphone with headphones attached, and to make the background blue to represent the sky and/or cloud, since all of the activity that takes place on SPR is done in cyberspace. 

The problem was that although in the past I've had some graphic design experience, what I lacked was the knowledge of how to work with photoshop layers and vector images, which was pretty much a requirement if I planned on building this thing on my own. (Thank GOD for YouTube!)

After several hours of watching video tutorials and playing with different effects, the original icon was born. The funny part is that to this day, I'm still not sure how I did it. Everything about it, with the exception of the color, was a complete accident (or "ack-ee-sent", as my niece used to say) right down to the details of the shadowing inside the phone itself, and the headphones. 

My work on the Left / Rezniks work on the Right

I was EXCITED! The minute I saw it I knew it was the one, so I saved it. 

And then...my computer crashed.

"WTF!!" I yelled out.  Fearing that I had lost  the icon and desperation because I had no clue how I did it. Thankfully, it was retrieved when my computer restarted, although it was a bit distorted due to the .bmp format it was now in. But I didn't care. By this time I was just relieved to know that I didn't have to start over. I knew I had just dodged the mother of all bullets.

So with this experience, I guess I've learned two things: 1, from now on, I'll let the professional graphic designers handle any icon upgrades, and 2, I've learned that you don't have to be perfect to do everything right the first time. Because, while I was worrying about what others would think of our icon, in actuality, no one really cared. Know one knew the story behind how it came to be, so essentially, all of the fears that I had about it were self-manufactured. 

So don't beat yourself up trying to be perfect all the time, especially if it's your first time up to bat. Just keep your eye on the ball and swing--you're bound to hit a home run eventually.