Cicada app, Loading image. I actually like this one better than the blue one.
What's this Cicada app
In 2014, the year I started my school as a web designer. I happened to find a young independent developer posted a design job on the China's Microblog Weibo. He had built a third party reading app for 'Zhihu Daily' (which is a news feed from top knowledge sharing community 'Zhihu' in China). Being a lightweight, simple and fast news feed reader, all prospects of this app is great, except its insect-like icon.
When I design the icon for this app. I want to embed a feeling of paper clips art to reflect newsletter reading, but also echoes the character of a virtual, digital and untouchable paper. So I borrow some idea from low poly design and play around with it. finally, a crystal blue paper clips cicada was there, standing on a white color paper like surface, encourage the users to open it and get every day's knowledge feeds inside the app.
Final version of Cicada app's Mac desktop icon
After the redesign of their icon, Cicada app could be put on user's desk dock in a charming and well-polished look. It helps this app reached the top 1 news sharing app in China Appstore and top 15 in all category. Around 100,000 users are using Cicada on their Mac.
Although in 2015, this app was put off the store for some reason. It still a meaningful project for me.
