Research Outline

Hand-Drawn Icon Market

Goals

To inform the potential launch of a marketplace that exclusively sells hand-drawn/doodle-style icons by determining the demand and/or any changes in the usage of hand-drawn graphics in mobile UI, web designs, apps and other digital media.

Early Findings

Iconfinder

  • As requested, the research team reviewed all recent Iconfinder Designer Reports to identify any relevant mentions of trends related to hand-drawn and/or doodle-style icons.
  • Notably, the Q1 2019 Iconfinder Designer Report highlighted the category-style combination of hand-drawn recreation & hobbies icons as the seventh greatest area of unmet demand for the quarter, adding that 991 such icons were sold in 2018.
  • Subsequently, the Q2 2019 Iconfinder Designer Report noted that the search keyword "doodle" was one of several that appeared to be rising in popularity, with a quarterly increase of 39.89%.
  • However, all other recent Iconfinder Designer Reports did not mention hand-drawn or doodle-style icons as a trend or potentially untapped source of demand.

Creative Market

  • More recently in February 2020, Creative Market released a Design Trend Report for Hand Drawn Icons, within which new demand from startups for such images was highlighted.
  • Specifically, startups including Mailchimp, Intercom, HelpScout and Buffer are increasingly leveraging hand-drawn graphics to "immediately differentiate" their brand identities.

Creative Bloq

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