The last few strands of the Tilt & Sprout update are now being finished off and one of my last jobs is to refreshing the icon for the game.

I've been looking back at the previous icons we've had for the game and the changes they've gone through, some more drastic than others.

When we launched Tilt & Sprout last year, coming up with the icon design to capture the essence of the game in such a small area was a real pressure test for me. I came up with various designs that went under the scrutinous eyes of Andrew (Developer) and April-Wendy (Creative Consultant) that didn't quite hit the mark. Then as usual, when I'm letting my mind wander, I came up with a Japanese inspired design (Tilt & Sprout icon 1.1) that I thought would really work and captured the game title, sense of fun and what the game was about. Although the icon is no more, I have to admit that I'm still a fan of that original design.

The 2nd version of the icon (Tilt & Sprout icon 1.2) was a complete overhaul. The design was mostly down to Andrew (I was probably feeling precious about my original design being treated like 'Old Yeller') as he wanted the game mascot to feature in the icon with the flower. This was to hopefully convey to the customer the type of the character and style within the game and appeal to a wider audience.

With the 3rd update of Tilt & Sprout came the next iteration (Tilt & Sprout icon 1.3). I had redesigned Tilt to have more of a cartoon feel, which fitted more into the game and appealed more to the existing audience from the feed back we were getting.

The latest icon (Tilt & Sprout icon 1.4) incorporates the learnings from all previous versions and builds on them. The brown centre of the sunflower took up too much space in the previous icon and was too dark, so we've gone back to the nice contrast of the red flower but given it much more personality through the use of colour gradients and pattern. Tilt has more of a manga look with his eyes and holds the flower to show his complete infatuation with the stars of the game, flowers. The border was reduced and darkened to increase contrast and the whole icon has been updated with the new graphical update, that has been applied throughout the game. I'm glad to say, the sun-burst from the original icon has stayed.

A year on and Tilt & Sprout has really grown and I'm proud of how the artwork has progressed in a year, to the game we have today. I have to admit, it was completely worth having designs given back to me and being told, make it better, by a team that know I have the ability to do so. After all I'm sure I do it plenty to them.