macos-app-icon-designer

name

macos-app-icon-designer

description

Design, critique, refine, validate, integrate, and package production-ready macOS application and menu bar icons. Use for macOS App Icon concepts, 1024px masters, layered Icon Composer artwork, Liquid Glass variants, Xcode AppIcon catalogs, Tauri or Electron desktop apps, legacy .iconset/.icns export, Finder/Dock previews, status item or tray template images, small-size legibility checks, or reviews against Apple guidance.

macOS App Icon Designer

Create a recognizable icon as a system asset, not merely an attractive square illustration. Separate concept design, Apple-platform treatment, technical packaging, and visual QA.

Workflow

1. Inspect the app before drawing. Read its name, purpose, audience, personality, existing brand assets, target macOS/Xcode version, delivery format, and every icon surface: Finder/Dock, menu bar, notifications, documents, and in-app branding. If context is missing, infer reversible visual directions and label the assumptions.
2. Read references/design-and-delivery.md. If current platform behavior matters, verify the linked Apple documentation because icon tooling and appearances evolve.
3. Write a compact brief with one core metaphor, silhouette, palette, layer plan, and explicit exclusions. Offer 2-3 meaningfully different directions when the user has not selected one.
4. Produce artwork with $imagegen when a raster illustration is appropriate. Request separate square, unmasked layers when the target is Icon Composer. Use SVG or native design tooling for geometric marks that need deterministic edges.
5. Match the artwork treatment to the delivery path. Keep modern Icon Composer layers square and unmasked; for flattened legacy .icns, provide the finished icon silhouette, transparent outer corners, and optical canvas padding because Finder and Dock don't reliably create that shape for you.
6. Review at 1024, 256, 64, 32, and 16 px. Simplify or hand-tune smaller variants if the silhouette, contrast, or core metaphor fails. Never assume downsampling alone is sufficient.
7. Deliver the format appropriate to the project:
   • Prefer an Icon Composer file and source layers for current Xcode/Liquid Glass workflows.
   • Use the existing AppIcon.appiconset wells when the project uses an asset catalog.
   • Create .iconset and .icns when required by a Tauri, Electron, legacy, or other non-Icon-Composer workflow.
8. Show preview sheets on light, dark, neutral, and wallpaper-like backgrounds. Test actual builds in Xcode, Simulator, Finder, and Dock when available. For a packaged .app, verify the configured icon, bundled resource, and source artifact agree.

Generation rules

• Start from a single memorable idea with a strong silhouette and few shapes.
• Prefer illustration over photography or UI screenshots.
• Avoid text unless it is essential to the brand; verify readability and localization consequences.
• Never reproduce Apple hardware or Apple-owned marks.
• Keep foreground edges clean and layer boundaries intentional.
• Evaluate optical centering, not only geometric centering.
• Preserve editable source layers and color profiles. Prefer sRGB for predictable delivery unless Display P3 is deliberate and tested.
• Do not claim exact unofficial safe-zone percentages as Apple requirements. Use Apple's production grid and mask previews.
• Treat "macOS style" as a platform fit, not as mandatory gradients, excessive gloss, or a generic squircle.
• Never assume macOS masks a flattened .icns. Reject full-bleed legacy masters unless the caller explicitly accepts a square silhouette.
• Never shrink a colorful App Icon into the menu bar. Design a separate monochrome template glyph with a tight optical bounding box and transparent background, then enable template-image behavior so macOS controls its color.

Packaging helper

For a flattened legacy master, run:

python3 scripts/build_iconset.py path/to/icon-1024.png --output path/to/AppIcon.iconset --icns path/to/AppIcon.icns

The script rejects non-square or undersized sources and, when ImageMagick is available, rejects opaque corners and edge-touching flattened artwork. It uses macOS sips for canonical sizes and iconutil for .icns.

Use --preserve-existing after hand-tuning small variants. Use --compile-only to compile an existing iconset without regenerating it. Use --allow-full-bleed only when a square legacy silhouette is intentional. Do not use this helper to flatten an Icon Composer design.

Generate the required visual QA sheet:

python3 scripts/render_preview_sheet.py path/to/icon-1024.png --output path/to/icon-preview.png

Completion checklist

Report the chosen concept, source/master files, appearance variants, package format, sizes reviewed, preview sheet, tools/tests actually run, target integration changes, and any remaining manual Xcode/Icon Composer/Finder verification. Do not state that an icon is production-ready if it has only been viewed at 1024 px.