Icons; Products / Services Segmentation

Successfully segmenting your products and services to optimize customer comprehension is critically important. Confused customers = lost sales. Your customers may easily become disoriented about which product sell sheet is the right one for them. Sometimes all sell sheets just “all look the same.” Icons are an excellent solution to this problem. Even if your products or services are highly similar, a differentiating icon is a great way to distinguish one product from another. With Icons, sales agents can guide customers to the correct sell sheet, or section on you website.

Below are brief descriptions of three types of icons.

Flat. Simple and effective. Stylized tools, Flat icons are usually uniform in color and without relief (dimension). They are commonly an abstraction, and in some manner represent a product or service. The Nike swoosh is an example of a “Flat” icon.

2D Relief. Very effective, and fairly stylized, 2D Relief icons are usually uniform in color but always include relief (dimension). They appear to be somewhat three dimensional, but they are not. They are commonly an abstraction, and in some manner represent a product or service. The Sony Ericsson logo is an example of a “2D Relief” icon.

3D. Very effective and very stylized. 3D icons are highly flexible and extremely versatile. They are “truly” 3D and can be animated for use on websites and in promotional multimedia tools. They are commonly an abstraction, and in some manner represent a product or service. The Sony Ericsson logo is an example of an icon that is perfectly suited for 3D. Most well developed 2D icons can easily be transformed into a 3D version.