The design challenge this project gave me was to create six icons for a city of my choosing, to which, without thought, I automatically chose my island’s capital, Charlotte Amalie. Any opportunity to do any work related to my home excites me, and this project was no exception. I chose a more minimalist design to challenge myself since many of my prior works were very complex. My main focus on this project was finding a way to keep the icons feeling coherent with one another, even though they vary in shape. With this thought in mind, only two colors were used, the colors yellow and black. The figures would be created with the pen tool using black strokes, keeping them very minimal in detailing. Each of the icons would also have areas of solid black along with a yellow circle on the upper left side. This yellow circle was a way to tie the icons further together while also representing the bright and warm sun in Charlotte Amalie. For my icons, I initially had difficulty selecting what subject to base my designs on, predominantly leaning toward animals and food, making my icon set feel bland when looking at it. But after doing my research, follow-ups with fellow St. Thomians, and multiple variation sets, I eventually pieced together a group with all St. Thomas’s cultural hallmarks.
I decided on the Moko Jumbie, mongoose, mangrove tree, bananaquit bird, palm tree, and kenep fruit. The end result is something that, as a St. Thomian, I am very proud of.