Project Type
Logo Design
Client
TourRadar
A New App Icon for TourRadar's App Relaunch
A distinctive home screen icon for the relaunched app, true to the existing brand.
TourRadar is a global multi-day tour marketplace. With a redesigned app on the way, we needed an icon that would stand out on a crowded home screen and feel unmistakably TourRadar. The brand already had a llama mascot, one I had designed a few years earlier to deliver travel tips and information inside the product, and it had become synonymous with the brand. The challenge was working the llama into the app icon without abandoning the equity of the existing logo.
I led the design of the app icon, from early concept exploration through to the final mark. This built directly on earlier work, since I had created the original llama mascot that the icon ultimately drew from.
Design Approach
Evolve the logo, don't replace it
We made an early call not to change the company logo, but to evolve it so the llama could live within the brand rather than alongside it. This kept brand recognition intact while giving the icon room to feel fresh.
Move away from the illustrated route
Initial concepts leaned into a fully illustrated icon, in the vein of apps like Duolingo. After several iterations it became clear the icon needed to sit comfortably with the existing logo and branding, so we stepped back from the illustrative direction.
Hide the llama in the wordmark
The solution was to take the "t" from the TourRadar wordmark and transform it into the head of a llama. The mark still reads as "t is for TourRadar," but it is also unmistakably a llama. One shape, two readings, full brand continuity.
