App icons

Web Design
#1

Hello people!!!

I’m going to develop a new app for neighbors community and local business so in the app, the users will find some categories of services they can choose and inside every category the related services.

Now I’m thinking about the icons I want to make, and I was thinking to add a “hand” to every icon. I’ll explain myself better with an example. Let’s say I’m looking for someone to help me out with “furniture assembling”: the options for the icon are 1) a simple screwdriver or 2) a hand holding the screwdriver, cause I thought the hand might better represent the help a person is giving.

Now, I got some concerns about this idea:

  1. will the hand be too repetitive as an element?

  2. will the icon be more scalable and understandable without adding the hand?

Thank you in advance for your honest opinions :slight_smile:

#2

I design, write, and illustrate a lot of user-instructions, assembly guides, etc., in which there are always opportunities to include depictions of disembodied human hands carrying out various tasks, and I avoid it whenever I can. That goes for any body part. I only make an exception if there is a particular angle of approach, grip, or body-part orientation that is essential to the procedure or message.

4 fingers and a thumb will add a lot of line-work to your icons; superfluous lines that won’t lend any form of clarity to them. When a hand tool is the subject, the hand is understood. That goes for most hand functions, other than gestures, of course.

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