The Designer Behind Your Favorite App Icons — Matthew Skiles

0:00That's just a a complaint I've had a few times is just you're almost stuck trying to replicate the AI design for people and they're like I want this and they're like but what do you want me for then if you just want me to redraw that thing for you cuz you already have that. Welcome to Launched. I'm Charlie Chapman and today I'm excited

0:17to bring you the designer behind so many of your favorite indie app icons, Matthew Skyles.

0:36[music] Matthew, welcome to the show. Hey there. This is like super exciting for me and actually is very launched related here because you are a part of this show in a way that I don't know if I've ever mentioned or if anybody actually knows. It's true. I am. I am. You should tell it. Last year, last year whenever I was in the the real doldrums of like I'm bringing the show back and then I'd released like two episodes uh you know in 6 months or something like that. In one of those heightened times of I'm definitely bringing it back and we're getting you know lots of energy behind this. I

1:14reached out to you to refresh the app icon. And it did. It did. I went through multiple iterations, I think, because as you sent me things, I realized how picky and annoying I am because I was like, "Oh, I'll take anything you give me." And then even just the slightest color tweaks, I'm like, "Oh, that doesn't feel right." But not at all. The particularly the airplane itself that you see now on the icon is pretty much 100% you. It's true. It's true. In the end, it I I guess that sounds

1:44like I'm taking too much credit. I I I redrew it, but it was with with your collaboration. [laughter] We did it together. We'll go with that. Yeah. I changed the made made in St. Louis, Missouri to mention Revenue Cat or something. Uh well, all I did was I that is where I snuck in the it's a Revenue Cat show now branding and it's very very small. It was a nice touch, but when I saw it, I was like I always like those little when you add a little bit of text to something. So, I was like I should have thought of that myself. But Matthew, if if if you all listening don't know, uh

2:17is the app icon designer behind an insane amount of apps. Like just go to what is your website, Matthew? Matthew styles.com. There you go. Very simple. If you just go there and start scrolling, you'll be like, "Oh, that one. Oh, that one. Oh, that one." Your icons are all over WWDC videos. You know, when they show the wall of icons, that must be a treat for you. It It is. It's it's it started probably a couple of years back that that first happened and it's it's never not exciting when you see something up there and you're like I don't know how this happened in my life. I I

2:48didn't think I'd ever be somebody who would make something who'd be up on that big screen. So it's it's pretty amazing. And now it's just loaded with those. But before we get into, you know, how you got to this point, I always kick off the show the same way to introduce people to who you are before we get to, you know, your work itself. So, the three questions I always do to kick things off is where are you from? Do you have a formal education related to what you do? And then let's talk about your career that led up to this sort of fantastic icon design studio you have now. Yep. So, I'm I'm

3:21based in New Zealand, South Island of New Zealand. I was born in Canada, but I've spent pretty much my whole life down this end of the world. So, that's I guess you would say I'm a New Zealander. Some of them don't believe that when they when they Yeah. when they hear my accent, they say, "You're not from here." But I I am. On the inside, I feel like a Kiwi. But yeah, so I'm a a Kiwi based graphic designer. I have no formal education at all when it comes to graphic design. I started designing things when I was what was I was 15 is when I designed my first website and coded it for

3:55a tennis coach. My father knew I was tennis coach and he said, "I need a website for teaching kids how to do tennis." My father said, "Hey, maybe my kids could do that." So my brother and I were like maybe we could do that and we just we got a book on how to how to build your first website in HTML. So you hadn't even done anything with HTML before that. No. No. Hadn't done a single thing. We got a book and we're like this doesn't seem that hard and took us it took us a long time but we we built something and it was it was totally passable. He didn't need a whole lot. He kind of really just

4:22needed one page to to sell what he was offering. And yeah, we put that together. And I guess I I liked the design side of it so much more than the the coding side. I didn't know it at the time, but I was kind of just more interested in that. I really liked CSS and how you could change colors, you could make it more fun in different ways. And that was kind of yeah what started me on my digital journey of of making pretty things is I just I just liked the feeling of being able to to there was nothing there and somebody wants something and you can put some stuff together

4:54and now you've got something that that's didn't exist not long before. How did you go from that to being a you know capital D designer then? I spent quite a few years in my teenage years just making small websites for people, family, friends, and people my parents knew and things. And I'd do that occasionally. It would it wasn't like a a job so much as a maybe once or twice a year somebody would have something I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, I can do that." And it was it was a pretty slowgoing process, I guess, for quite a while. And then I just kept making things. I just I liked designing

5:27things, so I started doing on my own time. When Dribble started, that was just an amazing thing to just look at. I wasn't a member yet cuz it was an invite only thing. So I would just marvel at all the cool stuff that other people made and I just I kept designing stuff hoping one day I could get an invite to do that and eventually I did and then yeah I just I just kept designing things for myself primarily and on a few small projects on the side until that slowly I guess I built a little bit of a reputation for myself on the internet primarily on dribble at that time and

5:57I started getting a few more jobs and a few more jobs. At that time it was still generally web- based stuff that I was doing a few apps and stuff and then I designed a little iOS I guess it was called iOS back then iPhone game for we called it rockin rockets. So you had the little little base on the ground and then you had to shoot rockets up at the aliens that were flying over. So my brother did the coding for that and I did all the design for that. We had like probably like seven, eight levels where you're on a boat or at the pyramids or different things and I got to do all the art

6:28for that, the menus and everything. And that Yeah, that was kind of a a fun little side project. We never we never made games after that, but it was really fun to just see what it's like to to be in that world on the app store. Yeah. Yeah, we were on the app store and everything probably close to 20 15 years ago in town. Probably something like that. Was a long time ago now. That probably would have been your first app icon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it actually was. Yeah. Yeah. For our own project. Yeah. I want to see it now. Is it Is it uh visible anywhere? Yeah. If you go to Max

7:00Stories, Max stories has two So, we got two little articles published on it for Rockin Rockets. So, if you search Rockin with an N, Rockin Rockets. How did that go then? This was you actually kind of making the product, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was it was a slow process, I guess, because it was just me and my brother. We were pretty young at the time. We were probably 20 or so and we just we just did it in our spare time as a fun little side thing. So we probably probably put it together over maybe 6 months a year. It wasn't a huge game, but it was just a fun project to work

7:33on together. And yeah, we launched. It wasn't it wasn't a big success. We weren't great marketers of of the things, but we we had some downloads. It was it was fun. That was a fun process just to make something to put it out in the world and to have a few people play it. We probably had Yeah. probably hundred people maybe who played it. It wasn't wasn't a huge success at all, but it was a yeah a fun process to just be a part of that world. Especially at that time, I I loved video games. So did my brother. So it was it was just cool to be like we're making our own video

8:01game. We always wanted to make games since we were kids. So it was a it was a it was a an experience worth doing for sure. like not only was it part you got to be part of the game world, but you also were then part of the sort of iOS indie game world if you were on Mac stories. Was that something you were that a community you were already part of? No, no, that was the first time that yeah, I got to do that. I think I guess I was outside observing cool stuff like that. There was two, there were pixel art games, very retrostyled games at that time. And I guess I was a really big fan

8:33of those that type of art being made into games on iOS. And yeah, that was kind of an inspiration, I guess, is to make sort of a little more retrol looking games and bring them to the mobile mobile space. That yeah, it was fun to be a part of that. You're like looking up to all these people and they're like, "We're making one. It's it's nowhere near as cool, but we we're doing something. We're we're trying to imitate that that style. So coming out of that were or and even before that

9:01I guess all this time you were doing essentially consulting work like building stuff for clients. Yes. Yeah. At that time yeah I was doing it already. Yeah. Mainly web stuff at that time just web designs. I was doing WordPress builds as well. So I'd design it and then build out the WordPress website for them. And yeah for the next couple of years I probably still kept doing that. It wasn't until around I looked it up yesterday, but no, I'm trying to think. It was about 2014 maybe that I really I started doing app icons. I made I made a couple of ones for a few apps that

9:39were I would say they're all right. I looked at them yesterday and I was like, they're not too bad for for for being so long ago and I was And those just came up organically like people who knew your web work were like, "Hey, can you make me an icon?" Yeah. I'm trying to think. One of them was for Yeah. an app, a music related app that Yeah. I did the web work for that for a couple of years before that. And then he decided to to build an iOS app. So then I got the opportunity to do that. That's yeah how I first got my my initial app icon work was people I already knew from other

10:11projects and they're like we need this you're the designer that we work with so you can have that job and that I was very lucky in that way cuz I guess I didn't have the portfolio of any kind to show anyone that I can do app icons but they they knew my work already and they were they had enough faith in me to to give it a shot. And what was your approach coming into that? I mean, this is during an era where I feel like, well, maybe this isn't true, but it feels like during that era, the like app icon designer thing was kind of becoming a big thing and there was a lot of respect given

10:47to that as like an art form in its own right. Um, in a way that feels a little different than now. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. And that I would say that would became those people became my heroes. the people who were making app icons at that time. It was probably yeah a couple years into designing that I I initially I was just working on a PC and Macs I became aware of them that people were making cool Mac apps and there was things like apps zapper and disco and panics apps like Kod and transmit and they just they just had such cool app icons and that [snorts] became yeah something that

11:20I was just like people make these there's somebody who gets to design these as a job and they're so realistic and they're so full of details that yeah That just became, I guess, a fixation of I don't know how to do that, but I hope one day I could make something half as good as these things that that I see on other people's screens. And it yeah, it just called to me that I I I want to look at

11:45these things. I want to make them. I want to make things that you can touch and and just play with. And so when you got your first, you know, kind of opportunities to do that, what was what was your approach and what was the icon world like? Was this preio iOS 7? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it was pre iOS 7. So, yeah, one of my first app icons. It's actually in the app icon book. It's a little pocket. So, there's it's like a little leather pocket, stitched leather, and it has little app icons inside of it, like a music player, and I can't remember what the other ones are. There's

12:16like three little icons in it. But yeah, I was very much into the textures and detailed things and trying trying to capture realism. I guess again that's what I saw in things like transmits truck icon or the the leaf of realistic things. So my goal was to try to yeah take it from I guess I was I was doing very unrealistic designs before that I guess or just things that are flatter symbols or things that just don't quite have that they look like a real object. But in that era, real objects were the cool thing to do in app icons especially. And I've I've spent the rest

12:52of my career trying to make that cool again. And I think it's coming back. It certainly feels like it. Yeah. We'll get into that. So in in this era it was all what we're using Photoshop for everything. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Photoshop for Yeah. For the first few years it was only Photoshop. Eventually I got a hang of Illustrator and I found that that I could I could do much more complex shapes and better better ground work. I build it in Illustrator and then bring it to

13:16Photoshop for but yeah for the first few years for your like texturing and finishing. Yes. Yes. Yes. You live in this a lot more than me. I always just like dabbled as an extreme amateur. But I think of using Photoshop and Illustrator and that workflow as being like, "Oh, remember when we used to have to do that?" But then whenever I think about how would I do the same thing I did then? I'm like, wait, I don't actually know how I would do that. Like I think I would go back to Illustrator and Photoshop, but like nobody seems to use those anymore. I hear that a lot. I hear people always

13:49saying those apps are dead. We don't use them anymore. And I as a designer of specific things that you just can't really do in other apps. I I don't quite Yeah, I don't quite see that. For me, I'm like, there's no better tool for building textured things than Photoshop. I can manipulate layers. I can put gradient maps on them. I can I can do much more complex masks. I can do all sorts of things that I just can't do in any other app. And for less textured, less detailed apps, app icons, it it's so much faster to do that in something like Sketch or Figma. But when you do

14:23want to do something heavily detailed or more complex, especially if you want to be precise with your shapes and alignment and everything, it there there is no other tool that that replicates what those two can do. So, do you still finish in Photoshop most of the time? I would say it's probably more often sketch these days, but I'm still using Photoshop. If I need any texture, I'm usually building it or warping it in Photoshop first. And pretty much everything I'm building the initial shapes in Illustrator first. It's just faster to build complex shapes for me than than

14:57any other tool. Sometimes it's Figma depending on what somebody needs, but Sketch is my preference. I just like native apps. I like Sketch. Yeah, I I I feel like I never was able to get a handle on Illustrator. I mean, I used it a lot, but it was never one where I felt I just was constantly running into weird walls of like, what am I supposed to do? I know exactly what I need to happen, but I don't know how to get there cuz it's just very esoteric. It is. It's a very complicated app to learn. I was the same for a very long time. I would see other designers make things

15:32in Illustrator. I'm like, I should be using that. That is so cool. And I just it's so complex. It's so hard to figure out Illustrator that it took me what to me felt like way longer than it should have to eventually eventually get there. But it's good to hear that other people also feel like it's so complex. So getting back to like your story then, you know, at this point it's the, you know, not the delicious era, I guess, but it's still in that same continuum before the great flattening uh

15:57of iOS 7. And you kind of got to start doing some icons, but that wasn't your primary work. Yeah. No, not at all. And then iOS 7 happened and I just and I keep referencing that assuming everybody knows what I'm talking about. But the big iOS 7 moment was, you know, living in that world. I was actually an Android user and a big Mac person. I was the weird inverted person. It turned out during that time period. But it felt iOS felt super dated to me as an outside person because of how dark and overly textured it felt like everything was. And this was the the big Johnny

16:33IV of make the world white room you know kind of moment and icons in particular I don't want to say suffered because that you know leads the witness a little bit but certainly there was a massive change from highly textured highly detailed realistic renderings to way flatter than you even look at when you look at your icons today. So I'm just really curious what your lived experience of that announcement and then kind of what came out of all that was. Yeah, for me as a yeah, much more as a as user of that world and being inside of it, I I would say I didn't notice how dark they

17:08are. It wasn't until much later and when I look back now, I'm like, well, it was so dark the way that they were doing everything then, but I didn't notice it at the time. I wasn't an Android user, so they it was a big Yeah, I almost felt the opposite. I was like, why is it everything so colorful and so bright? And to me, that seems crazy now that I love that style of things to be bright and colorful. And you can see that in my work, but it it wasn't apparent to me at the time. I was like, "What are we doing? Why where what is all this color? It's so childish. It's

17:36so not serious." But that's it was a different time. I felt differently about that. And I guess you weren't doing like actively rolling through doing app icons at that time. It was still the occasional thing. Yeah. It was probably two or three a year at that point. It wasn't It wasn't a whole lot yet. just occasionally when somebody that I worked with needed one or in a rare case somebody who saw one of my previous ones that I had posted would come along. Were you holding the line when those did come up and being like let's add some detail or were you kind of like let's make this fit with the system and kind of begrudgingly make everything flat. Yeah,

18:12I think I was pretty quick to jump on board with we'll go flat. It seemed like there was that's what everyone was wanting to do. Anybody who came to me was right we need a new flat icon. So yeah, I just jumped on board. I guess I [snorts] I I would have said it was actually it almost felt more complicated because before that you kind of had details and textures to hide behind and then because of the great flattening you just had to have a great shape and I was so new to it that it felt quite daunting. It was like I have to get this shape to be amazing if I want this app

18:43icon to stand out. I can't I can't just hide it under coolness of textures and other things. So it is kind of like like favicon like whenever you are doing a brand icon or logo mark or whatever and you you have to make it work at favicon sizes as well as larger sizes it's like wow like this limitation how do I make it visually distinctive with just color or silhouette. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it was really it was great for me to for that to come along at that time in my career for me to kind of learn that that's something important and that's how to to focus on that

19:17first to get a good shape going first before you added details and textures. So, it was beneficial despite it being a difficult period at that time because you're like, I don't know how to do this. I I just know how to put textures on things. And maybe to pull on that thread a little more and jump ahead in the story slightly is, you know, the next great Apple, you know, bequaththing on us, a world that we all have to live in now is the the icon jail moment of of the Mac. Now, I don't know that you've done that. Maybe you have done a lot of Mac icons, but it seems like most

19:50of the work I see from you is on the iOS side, but for context for everybody else, you know, on the Mac, this delicious era of Mac icons that you were talking about at the beginning, part of what made it so great is they were free that, you know, you had a big transparent box. You

20:05can make it any shape you want. You can make it a squirrel, but then have stuff break out of it. And then last year with Tahoe, yeah, they said, "Nope, no more. every app has to live inside a squirrel jail. And we talked about the challenge of you only can rely on a silhouette. Well, once that happened, you didn't even really have a silhouette. You now are going to be in a box and you had even more limitations. So, what were your feelings kind of on that? I would say when they they first brought the squirrel, but you could still break out of the bounds of that. I actually

20:36really like that constraint because there's a lot of fun designs you can do where there's a little piece of it sticking out of it or the the top is different than the bottom. It just there's yeah, it's a nice constraint to work with. I found I actually enjoyed iPons a little more even though I think I would agree prior to that there is more distinct silhouettes if they don't all fit into the squirrel. But as a from a design perspective, it's quite a fun constraint to work with. But the Tahoe constraint where you can't break those bounds when you want to, I'm not the biggest fan of. I think it's it's too much of a constraint. But I like the the middle

21:09ground just before that. I I feel like I made some of my some of my favorite Mac icons were Yeah. once that that transition happened where you could you could build a box and fit that box into it, but then say have the lid open and it extends just a little bit past the edges. And it just I I really like that finding that how can we make this real object fit into this shape but with a bit of freedom just to add a bit of flare and fun to it. I liked that the big su moment was when they they basically like changed the icons by convention but not by you know technology. like anybody could and

21:45Apple or Adobe still would just make their big squares, but most of the icons would kind of fit into this like same looking squirle as you get on iOS, but you're allowed to break out. And that I felt like that was maybe the most fun time in in those designs. Definitely. I would agree as well. And yeah, the I guess it's a an advised constraint versus a forced constraint I think is

22:08the gives the best best results for something. the the forced glass look for everything. I won't fast forward too too much further. But I guess the last thing on this little journey here is, and this came with Tahoe as well, but this year it's kind of continuing that trend, which is not only are we inside of the system where you're stuck inside of this box, but for the most part, icons are no longer expected to just be rasterized pixels, but instead to be, you know, defined vector shapes that can be rendered with effects by the system itself, which means things that can look different in different contexts based on the system, you know, making changes. How how have you

22:53felt about that whole change? Does that is that a fun thing to play with or is it more frustrating? I would say it leans more frustrating, but there are fun bits of that, I guess, when it comes to if if there is a specific icon you're working on that it makes sense to have it be glassy or it makes sense to have a unified app icon across say watch OS and Mac OS and iOS, then it it's it's great. icon composer is great for that. It's easy to to build out an app icon that works on all. I don't have to do different designs for different platforms and everything. So that

23:24that I really appreciate, but there are so many times when it just doesn't make sense for there to be a glass highlight on the corners of this object that somebody wants to have for their app icon and you just kind of have to live with, yeah, that's just how it's going to look. And yeah, I would say more frustration than positive, but there are some positives that I'm I'm appreciative of what they built cuz it it saves time. It saves energy and it it just it can give you results that are totally systemlike without too much effort to build something that someone wants to be, especially if they want to be very system-like. It can be quite easy to replicate that with the

24:02tools that they give us with icon composer. Yeah, I guess the big like hangup there is, you know, because you can choose whether or not you want to use their effects on layers within your icon, but you can't turn off the the edge highlights themselves that like place your icon in kind of a glass context. Yes. Yes. And that that I I get it cuz it creates consistency in your dock or on

24:28your home screen, but that Yeah. If it was up to me, that that that effect wouldn't exist. let people put glass within the icon, but just don't put it on the frame because then if you don't want a glassy icon, you you don't have to go that route. But this is the world we live in. We accept we accept what Apple gives us and we find a way to make it work. We'll roll back here. So, you know, we left off iOS 7 happened. You're doing occasional icons, but this is not your main beat. But if we look at 2026, Matthew Skyles, at least externally, maybe this isn't the case for

24:59you day-to-day, it feels like you're the app icon person. That is your main portfolio piece. That's what you know people are asking you for all the time. How did that start? I just kept making them is what it is. I when I would get a chance that's what I would post. I wouldn't post my web design work. I would just post app icon designs and post means where triple was the main place I was doing that. Eventually I started doing it on Twitter formerly known as Twitter and yeah those kind of became the main places. Now I do a mastadon and blue sky as well. But he the places what when I

25:31started getting more jobs was primarily dribble and then eventually Twitter as well of just posting when I made an app icon and just trying to show people this this is what I like to do. This is what I hope I'm good at at the time. I was like I I think this is pretty. I think I did a good job. You could hire me to to do another one if you want. And I just kept doing that and eventually, yeah, I guess I got the the ball rolling a bit that people started seeing that, you know, that's the guy who did something we could we could hire in for that. But I think the the big thing

26:03that really got me noticed in that world was when Christian came along with Apollo and asked me to do some alternates for that. that was a really big he has such a huge audience and it's such a a big thing in the community the app icons for that app. So it it was really beneficial for people to see see my work and be like oh that I like what he did in the app. I I want the same guy who did the app icon in Apollo to do something for me. That was, you know, a really a helpful thing for me in getting popularity enough for people to see what I did cuz I guess I didn't have a a huge following

26:40before that, but he his app has a huge following. So, it's it it doesn't hurt to get to get asked by Christian to to make something for his app. Yeah. Seriously. You see, and for reference, Apollo, you know, rest in peace, was the like iOS indie iOS Reddit app. And Christian did a really cool thing. Honestly, I feel like he did a just big thing for the art of icon design by one of his one of his features for the pro version of of Apollo was you get access to a like constantly updating set of app icons. and he would bring in basically everybody I know about that's like well

27:23known for icon design. He got them at some point, commissioned them to make icons. But inside of the app, it's like it's like an art piece. It says your name, it says who it's from. That's almost like a big part of what the appeal was, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it was. I I was I was truly honored that he they asked me to be a part of it cuz there was so many great designers who had already made app icons before I got a chance to do it that I was like you want me to to make an app I can with this that's a I I hope I can live up to your expectations. Luckily he kept asking me

27:54back I got to do a few more after that. So I must have done an all right job at that point. Like you said you were you were constantly posting this. I'm assuming that's cuz that's the work you really liked doing and you wanted to do more of this. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. How did you think about that in terms of, you know, the business of, you know, running a design consultancy? Because I feel like app icons are very shortterm engagements without a lot of repeat work. That would terrify me as a, you know, somebody who I would be stressed about constant work coming in. If I was a smart

28:29businessman, I wouldn't have made that decision. But I I make I make decisions based on it's fun. I like these things. These are what I love to do and it makes me happy to get to work on these things. And luckily, life worked out that people keep wanting me to make things for them. But yeah, it's it was not a smart business decision. I'm still not sure if it's a smart business decision, but it keeps working, so I'll keep doing it. But yeah, yeah, write it out as long as you can. I mean, exactly. You know, it's one of those things where like many things with the app store, I think

29:00it's easy to forget the scale of just how big it is. And usually when I say that, I'm meaning in terms of just people opening the app store and searching to solve their problem. Like as a when I'm talking to developers and you're talking about distribution, it's like it's hard to overestimate how many [snorts] people are hitting that box. And if you can just ladle a small amount with a good keyword or a good solution to somebody's problem, it can be surprisingly big numbers for a smaller developer. But I I assume that's also the case on the app developer side. There's so many people

29:34making apps. It continually surprises me cuz yeah, I always think I've made so many over my career. How can there be more apps and more people that I haven't worked with, but there's there's always a new person who comes along and says, I've got a new app and I want you to make an app icon. And I it it's I guess I I am very grateful for Apple for having the app store and making it such a thing in the world that there are developers who make apps because yeah I have my career because there are it's it's a possibility for people to make apps and they need app icons to do that. And I get to

30:07I get to work on them every day. Something that I love but it this wasn't a job when I was a kid. There there wasn't that many app developers. So this this wasn't something you could dream of one day doing. Yeah. And I think there I think there is something to I I could be wrong on this, but I think there's something to the fact that the cards landed where they landed with Apple being the one running this thing. I think does mean that you're allowed to and expected to have a little bit more attention to detail and appre and like care about the art form of the icon. Whereas,

30:43you know, it's not that there wouldn't need to be designers, but the the needs and goals would definitely be different on a different platform. Yes. Yes. No, they would for sure. And I guess that's that's what I love about app icons in the Apple ecosystem, especially in their their their funner eras, let's say, when they don't have squirrel jails and things of there's there is a prioritization of of making fun well-designed app icons. And it used to be apps as well. you don't quite see that as much, the app interfaces having that same sort of character and fun to them. But maybe one day we'll get that back too. But that that definitely was, you know, a a big part of it,

31:21I think, is Apple fostering that sort of sort of commitment from developers to want to have greatlooking apps and greatl looking app icons for their product. Yeah, I feel like the the apps themselves have had almost an opposite world where it it became so much more complicated the amount of different things you have to think about in terms of screen sizes and all these different platforms and everything's crossplatform now that you know it it kind of forces like it requires so much more investment to do something custom and interesting and have texture and that kind of thing. Well, I guess that's kind of true with app icons because of like what we were talking about

31:58the effects that are laid on on top and stuff, but a little less so there. It's mostly convention is why things have moved flatter, right? We can still ship an app icon and I can I can drop a PNG file in there and we'll only have the glass around the edge, but we don't have to do anything different otherwise and we could use that on any platform we wanted to. So, yeah, there isn't a complete constraint to do that the same as there is with developing apps or even for the web. I guess it's it got a lot harder when we had all the different screen sizes you had to work for. It's it just

32:29some of that fun did went go away in certain ways because it's just too complex to make it work for every different use case. And we were talking about, you know, Apple and their care for design and like how that's shaped the app icons. Android doesn't have these same constraints on app icons. It is actually more like the Mac where you can just have transparency. Do you do a lot of Android icons? And if you do, what's that like? I really don't. I I guess it's because that's not the type of work that I I show off. So, no one comes to me thinking that I I can do that that I usually only

33:00will do that if someone has an app that's also on Android. Then we will we'll do the app icon for iOS and then usually it'll be a variant of that that fits within the guidelines and constraints of of the Android platform. But yeah, it's pretty pretty rare. I've probably maybe once a year someone will will need one on Android. But yeah, just the developer community that I exist in, I guess, is primarily made up of Apple developers. So they're the ones who see my work and they're the ones who come to me. So I'm not sure where the the Android developer community probably exists somewhere, but I'm just not quite a part of that. So I don't I don't see them and they don't see

33:36me. So we we don't have much crossover. As I've done many times, I think on this show, you know, calling out to the listeners, I'm always looking for people in that Android space. I feel like I do know of, you know, indie Android community folks, but it's definitely more on the open-source or or these kind of, you know, more like featurerich like a like a utility client that has a million options, but it's less about the kind of design. It's not to say that Android apps don't have interesting good designs and Android itself is an interestingly designed operating system, but I at least have never been able to find that community of people the same way. Yeah, same here. I I often

34:21think that of I don't see the designers who are making the app icons for Android, but there's so many apps on Android, so there's got to be somebody somewhere posting the work. But I again, they don't seem to exist in the same communities as the Apple developers. So I I don't see them and I'm I wish I did because I'm sure that there's so many things I'm missing out on that I could see, I could appreciate, I could follow people and say this is great work, but I just don't know who they are and I don't know how to find those people. So it is a you know but something Apple has kind of

34:50built I guess is a community in that way for their developers. The way they run their system kind of people around that build communities that you can gather together and share ideas. Obviously, Apple deserves credit in the sense of kind of fostering this philosophy of caring about design and everything, but like the community itself has always seemed like it existed in its own right. And you mentioned dribble earlier and dribble I think it's still around. It's it's dribble like a basketball but with three B's, right? And yeah, like 10 15 years ago still even. I feel like

35:25Dribble was the designer hangout place. It was where you went to learn about the what was it? New new morphic. That's the last trend I remember on on Dribble. It was it was a thing for a time. Yeah. But like that was where people posted their interesting work they were doing. And that was where it felt like there was this sort of organic movement of ideas through the design community, the digital design community. And I don't it doesn't feel like dribble is that anymore even if it is still around. And maybe it is. You can correct me if I'm wrong. No, no, no. It definitely isn't yet. The heyday has passed for that kind of space. And where is that? Is it

36:01Twitter/masttodon/blue sky sl whatever today's latest social network is or is there somewhere I don't know about? If there is somewhere I don't know about it either from my experience. Yeah, it just kind of fell apart over time. It used to be Twitter for a time and that kind of I guess you know it people went their different ways. Some people went to Macedon, some people just stopped

36:23posting over the years. And it it isn't the same community as it once was. And I do I do miss that. And I think a lot of people do. I often see people wanting to sort of recreate a new version of what Dribble used to be, but nothing seems to be able to to recreate that. It's hard to explain like if you weren't in the space and community in the like early 2000s or or 2010s, not 2000s. Like think of

36:49like the way most people here probably know, you know, the AI community now, mostly Twitter, right? and the energy and freneticness and flame wars and all of the things that come with that that existed maybe with less money and less people, but to the same kind of energy and degree in the design community and in the honestly like app building community. And part of it was everything was new. And so everything was being invented/explored and we could do stupid things but we didn't know they were stupid yet. And maybe that's really all it is, but it feels like maybe the sort of everything shifted to Twitter and then with Twitter getting the things happening to it that

37:27it happened with and everybody splitting off into different zones, it feels like that never reformed the same way. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's it's kind of the we could say complaint about the internet itself. It just it was a bit smaller feeling in the early days. There was a little bit of a different vibe and tone to the internet. I guess as a whole it's a different world now. It's more algorithmically driven. It's it's it's a different kind of communities exist generally speaking than what we had back then. Not necessarily bad now. They're just different harder to find probably than they they were or at least harder to find bigger communities. They're probably smaller

38:04more niche things and smaller groups in different places. But they they seem to be a little more all in one place I guess back then. So, where do you where are you looking for influence these days? You know, like how are you getting new ideas and and and sharing your ideas out? I would say it's still primarily X, formerly Twitter, not so much Twitter these days. It's just not it's not very there's not a whole lot of activity there anymore, but yeah, it's primarily X is where I get it. But yeah, it's just not not as much as it used to be, I would say. So, you kind of have to

38:39go a little further out and just kind of explore to try and find things that aren't all the same cuz otherwise there's just a lot of people making things that look like everybody else's stuff. You don't quite have that variety that you used to see. So, it takes a little more work. But yeah, I don't think I could suggest any specific other place. Twitter X is still the primary place where I would get that inspiration, but I do long for more digital inspiration in the icon space. what what are the current ideas or trends that you see happening now? Yeah, I guess glass obviously, but I think more interesting glass is something that I see happening at the moment. People doing

39:18their own shaders with glass or doing them in Blender or things that give you [snorts] I guess more polished looking glass than defaultly what icon composer will give you. So just more complex designs that have complex refle refractions or more depth to them. Just there's a lot of yeah a lot of interesting things I'm seeing people do with more complicated versions of glass and you know that's probably the primary thing I'm seeing. I guess also just working with very a lot of times they're shader driven color mesh gradients and things like that. There's a lot of work I see in that area. I I think that's something interesting to kind of work into how app icons are

40:03done. At the moment, I see a lot of it and it's a little too abstract. They did kind of their look, I made a colorful thing, but it doesn't quite show what the app is. And I think taking those ideas and maybe concretizing them a little bit so they they have a little more of an object or a

40:20symbol that you're trying to portray something is an interesting path. But it hasn't quite settled. I guess it's just a new idea that people are playing with at the moment. Based on, you know, that right there, something I really wanted to kind of dig into a little bit here is what what is your philosophy around icon design? So, taking out current trends whenever you know somebody reaches out to you and they want to do an icon. I'm sure they give you ideas right off the bat or whatever, but what are you looking for at the beginning to be like, "All right, what is the direction we want to we want to take this?" And then how do you like sculpt that into into you know a finished

40:56product at the end? In an ideal scenario, someone has a yeah a good idea of what they're hoping to portray. I guess in my favorite times someone will come to me and they say, "I want a flower that's in a coming out of a a shoe. Let's say they they have a very specific idea because they know that represents their app." And you don't always get that lucky, but those are my favorite because I guess they they know what they want and you can spend all of your time refining that and making that perfect. And when it comes to that that core concept, do you do you think it's better whenever

41:29those are directly like reflections of something inside of the app? No. No. Yeah, I don't think so at all. I Yeah, I guess to to go back some earlier examples, I guess like transmits truck or code as leaf. There are app icons that it's just it's so fun to have in your doc. People don't care what it is. They just like I want to find out what that app is. And then that will draw them into using the app. So yeah, I would say for me those are almost my favorite is the ones that aren't too literal, but they're such a unique or fun design that people will be drawn in by that and they'll

42:05want to have it around. Even if they're like, I don't know if I want to use this app. I don't know if I need it, but the app icon will make them be like, I'll give it a shot because I want that in my doc. I want that on my home screen. So, I guess that's that's my hope is to to make app icons that are enticing and they're visually fun to look at so that they're not boring and you're like, it's, you know, it's a utility I use. It doesn't need to look nice. I think if it's a utility you use all the time, it it should be something you like having around. You should like to look at it. I

42:34guess it's the same as if you you have a tool and you could have a nicel looking one or you could have one that looks terrible colors. You you'd want to have a nice one sitting on your desk. You want to have a nice whatever type of tool it is, a nice pen, let's say. And so step one is like find that metaphor and then you can start racing on making that metaphor work. Do you start with shape colors? Like do you have like some kind of approach that you usually do for the beginning point? See if you can see this here. So, what I have is this this is what I've

43:06been doing recently. So, I have these little half icon squares and I just put them here and I will I will just there's a grid on it. You can't actually see it, but it has that half icon grid on it. So, I will just draw lots of shapes. See if I have one here that has something on it. Sure. Yeah. So, pencil and paper. Yeah, that's what I've been doing these days. I guess I used to do on Procreate or on my iPad or sometimes I do it different ways, but yeah, at the moment that's what I found. I just you get a little more organic shapes and things that are kind of sometimes it's

43:33easier to convey it with the a sketch a literal sketch versus if you just had some simpler lines in Illustrator it might not quite have the same feel that you're going for with the final product. So yeah, I will do a bunch of sketches usually like probably like 10 different ones if I can. Sometimes it's a we sort of have an idea so we don't need as many. We're like it's probably going to be this. we just want a few variants. But if it's a little more vague as to what we want, we'll probably sketch up a bunch of different directions. And then yeah, usually somebody

44:02would say this, this one works. This is the idea we want. And then I will start building basic shapes for that. Usually I won't start with color yet unless they sometimes they already have a pre-existing brand or we're say refreshing an existing app. So we kind of know it's going to be these colors, but otherwise I'll I'll generally avoid color until we get further on the path of this shape's going to work. So then we can start adding colors and things to it. And the important thing with a shape is obviously conveying whatever the the concept is. But are you at this stage

44:33already thinking about like distinctiveness and recognizability at different sizes and all that? Yeah, most of the time there are some apps I guess some apps they will come to you and they have an idea and you're like this isn't going to be great at a super small size. But that's a [gasps] a a downside they're willing to accept because that this is this is the concept they want. It may be quite detailed and that's what they've wanted and it's not going to translate super well to a small size, but that's just how it is with some apps. You just have to accept that. But overall, if you're if you have the freedom to start with a fresh idea yet, you're probably going to be

45:10starting with what ideas will be able to translate to all of the use cases here. You don't want to be making something you're like, "It looks great. They love it, but we can't actually make this work in an app icon for all the context." And then when you get to the point of bringing in color, how do you think about how do you think about color on the app store? Are you looking at com competition and being like, how do we separate from everybody else or are you kind of trying to stay agnostic of what the outside world is is thinking? Depends on the project. Some some of some people are yeah a

45:42little more into showing you the competition that they have and saying these people they everybody uses orange so we don't want to use orange because that's what everyone in this space uses. So that that can be useful to do that but I guess I usually am a little more clientled in that way that some of them they do want to fit with what most people are doing in the space because they want to be a similar product to the other ones in the space. So yeah, it's not so much up to me. It's a little more up to the client of how they whether they want to stand out or they want

46:09to fit into that space. There are different goals for different types of apps. So yeah, it depends on that. But I would say specific colors it there are certain times where certain colors seem to get a little overused in certain apps. You will get the the purple and bluey hues that everyone's doing or other color times. So yeah, if that's happening, especially say in the AI space when that started coming along, everything was purple and blues. They're all buttholes, right? Isn't

46:37that the [clears throat] Yes. [laughter] Yes. Have you made a lot of like star icons or whatever? I've drawn a few of those myself and like this is what am I doing? What am I doing? Not to make too much of a reference, but I that was a bit on the show community like in the 2000s or whatever. And I just can't believe that that happened in real life. And every single time I I see the a new AI startup, I'm like, how is this still happening? It's pretty crazy. It is. It is. [snorts] But

47:08uh yeah, to just to finish my point there, that that I will try to push people away from that. Sometimes they're like, "Let's do these colors." And I'm like, "Everybody is doing these colors. Let's could could we do something else?" And sometimes I win that argument and sometimes not. But otherwise, we're we're usually open to most things. But there are some things I'm just like, from my experience, this is a bit overused. We should dial it back a little bit if you want to stand out at all. I guess the finishing part then would just once you've kind of nailed that down, then you just kind of take it into Photoshop if you need extra materials or render something

47:42in Blender if you if you want a specific type of glass or whatever. And and then that's kind of the end. Like you're sort of done at that point. Yeah, pretty much. I guess there's it's there's a lot of refinements usually. Some of them you you get it right pretty early on, but a lot of times there's minor tweaks going back and forth of just this is almost working, but we need to change the colors here or the shape doesn't quite work in this part of the app icon. But yeah, just refinements from there. Once you've once you settle on a concept, most of the time it works. There's rare cases

48:13where you might go down a path and it it seemed like it was going to work. You thought it would translate well, but it just doesn't quite translate from sketch to to final design. So you have to back it up a bit and see how you can tweak it. But most of the time, I guess having done it so many times, you kind of get a feel for which ones just just aren't going to translate, even though it looks great on a sketch. So you you you don't show those ones. You're like, I love it, but it's not going to work. I I know these don't translate. So for everyone listening who, you

48:42know, is a budding app icon designer themselves or they're foolishly trying to design their own when they should instead hire the services of a professional. What advice do you have, you know, based on things that you see people do? What are some of the mistakes people make that you see often? You're like, ah, like just change this or no, you should never do that. Probably one of the first obvious mistakes is just having if you're if you're doing like a simpler one where you have a symbol in the the middle of your app icon is making it too big. Just people people want to scale it up. So it's it's filling most of the squirle. And there's I guess that's

49:15why Apple has the the grid guidelines for that. But just usually that is a yeah a mistake I'll see often if someone made it themselves or they they they're new to making app icons. And I I used to make the same mistake myself. But just give it a bit of breathing room. just shrink it down just a little bit and you it'll look nicer. I know you want it big and you but just just a few pixels down and it'll it'll be better. I think is the the main thing I see on app icons that just don't quite work is too big a logos put in the center or symbols and that's like what keep it within

49:47weighted you know obviously things can break out but generally speaking try to keep it within this the outer circle that they draw in their uh I would say you actually want to be a little smaller than that. I think that's sometimes where people run into the issue is they they go all the way to the circle. Even if it is a circle, sometimes that just doesn't quite look right for certain shapes that just you want to be a bit smaller. You just kind of I guess again it's a thing you you learn over time and just optically it doesn't look quite right. But yeah, I would say if it's not

50:15looking right, maybe just shrink it down a little bit and see how that how that looks because it's a common mistake. And then I guess I'd be remiss to not bring up, you know, in the year 2026, uh, to a designer, how how is it feeling right now with, you know, the the massive AI, uh, world? Because that kind of feels, I mean, coders listening, obviously, it's coming for them and impacts us, but I imagine a significant amount of people, even people listening, are like, I just had Codeex do mine and it seems fine. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that's definitely the the the big thing at the moment is what what the future holds for AI in that way. At the moment,

50:55I would say I don't I don't use it for my work cuz I I love the process of doing it myself of coming up. Well, that's the differentiating factor, right? The moment you can just use it, uh it kind of [laughter] it kind of like well, what's the point in having somebody else do this? Yeah. Yeah. I I guess I would say the the upside of it is it is useful for generating interesting ideas from what I see of other people doing it of generating variant ideas or complex uh again I think it's interesting for the the colorful mesh gradients and things and shader stuff that it does. There's interesting stuff there, I think. But, uh, yeah, for the downside,

51:36I would say often I find it it almost gives people choice paralysis when they they use it to try and come up with what they want. If they're presenting it to me, sometimes I'll have people come to me and they say, I've got these ideas that AI gave me for my app icon. And you're almost, you will say, I think we should do this because this is better for a system native looking app icon. And then they will go and then generate 50 more options. And they kind of they just keep having options

52:04and you are like at some point you have to make a choice so I can go in that direction with you. But they it just they get a bit choice paralysis on that that Yeah, I found it a little unhelpful when people use it too much to try and help themselves. It almost hinders them that they can't see it because they think it's helping them. Yeah, that's it's an interesting thing because it's like it's it's kind of like having infinite resources or no constraints. It kind of

52:30blocks you from moving forward sometimes. Do you find I'm sure you get lots of references from it. I I know I I do this a lot like we I work with designers significant amount in my day job and but also I do AI generate a lot of stuff just the mountain of stuff I need to generate is more than any human can possibly keep up with. And sometimes I'll send reference stuff that I'm pretty happy with and I want I'm like I want a designed version of this that looks nicer. And sometimes they give me exactly that. And sometimes it's like they'll just ignore it. And I'm like, oh my god, I'm so

53:03glad you ignored what I sent you because uh I'll give you just a specific example. We have an event in Canada coming up and I came up with a thing. I spent way too long getting a nice reference and this person just looked around Google Maps, found a cool looking bridge and designed a whole thing based on the architecture of that bridge. And it's like I never in a million years would I have thought to prompt AI to do that. Um, and so that was a really long-winded way to ask, do you do you sometimes try to take a crack at things ignoring the reference material they give

53:38you, or do you find it more helpful actually when you get a lot of that reference material? It really just it's a case by case basis. There are times where yeah I really appreciate it because they they have a specific idea in mind and the AI generated image gives them a way to convey that to me whereas it would have taken a lot a lot long a lot longer to kind of find what it is they're looking for and there are times where yeah they're just not they may look good but they're not good for what we need. So you do kind of have to try and ignore parts of it and build something

54:05new out of it. So it's it's a it's a balancing act of that. But yeah, there are definitely probably more often than not times where I appreciate that they have something AI generated to give me as a a guide of where they want to go because it it is a helpful tool in that way. Yeah. The ability to communicate things visually. I've talked about it probably a lot here before, certainly online, but we have a Slack channel at work called Topic Dumbas, which is where half the things we do in marketing comes from. And since the advent of good AI image generation, the amount of things

54:40we've been able to do because your thread can very quickly spiral into like you're building a product because you can just be like, "Oh no, it should look like this. Oh no, what if we did this?" And then you take it to the professionals who actually but it's like it's more about how quickly you can convey an idea that you know you when you're talking to somebody, you can just sketch out really quickly this idea, but the person can't do that back to you. Yeah. Yeah. No, that is definitely where it's beneficial and it I don't see a lot of downside in that. As long as you can

55:10not get too attached to the AI generated image of saying it needs to look like this, that's that's where issues can arise. But if you cannot do that, then there's really no no problem. It's that I guess it's like designing not using wireframes and designing at color or whatever. Like it's it's hard to focus on the part you're trying to focus on. Yeah, that's just a a complaint I've had a few times is just you're almost stuck trying to replicate the AI design for people and they're like, I want this and they're like, but what do you what do you want me for then if you

55:42just want me to redraw that thing for you cuz you already have that? That's so much. Well, yeah, but you can me talking defending the person. It's like you can look at it and be like this looks AI design. I want this but not AI designed. It's It's got the right stuff. And I can tell you again, having gone through this a lot, it's like the amount of times the person will give me something and I'm kind of annoyed cuz it's like I can't just drop this. It's not exactly the same. And then months later, I'm I've I'm I've been using their real designs for months and then I go back and I

56:15run into somewhere where I haven't changed it or I just happen to see my AI one and I'm like, I can't believe I thought that was good. [laughter] It's like embarrassing. Yeah, it's very weird how much you get attached to something once you especially if you just start using it as a placeholder. I'm guilty of it myself. It'll happen. I'll make something I'm like, "This is it. This is the perfect design." And they're like, "We want to go a different way." And I'm like, "But this is perfect. Why would you go a different way?" It it's human to to hold on to the thing that you

56:40you first have that you think is great. It's just how it is. And you mentioned you don't use it in your work. Uh but then you also mentioned like there are interesting areas in particular with uh really with like textures and and gradients and stuff like that. Is that something that you are experimenting with or is there a bit where you're like with the with the tone of the way things are right now it's kind of like why add that third rail into my design? I can it's easier to just say I'm 100% you know handcrafted or whatever. I think at the moment, yeah, that's kind of my position is

57:14just stand back and watch and see see how it plays out because yeah, I'm not I'm not sure where it lands and what it is. I I think I'm I'm generally that way with most tools. I'm a little cautious and slow to jump into them. I'm the same say with Sketch. When Sketch first came out, everyone was jumping on board saying it's the best thing ever. And I was like, I got Photoshop. What do I need that for? And eventually I was like, I love Sketch. this is amazing, but I'm just I I'm happy with the tools I have, but I I'm happy to see other people doing it and then eventually be

57:42like, you know, this seems like something that's going to stick around cuz there are lots of tools that come along and they don't stick around. I'm like, well, what did I learn to use it for then? Cuz somebody discontinued it. So, I if if I'm if I'm doing my job and it's all working out as is, I don't need that tool currently. If I do, then I'll I'll go down that path. But until I need it, I don't need to to jump on board quite yet, I think. But we'll see. Maybe in the future I'll regret that and I'll be like, I should have jumped on earlier. I don't know. I feel

58:09like in particular with this this moment of AI, uh, the tooling changes so fast that, you know, I this is not advice to ignore put your head in the sand and ignore it cuz I I think especially on the coding side, that can really burn you. But also it's changing so fast that like the expertise you build up often times becomes obsolete so fast anyway that it it's better to kind of get into find a workflow that works and then keep doing that. Um and then slowly change it over time. Yeah. From an outside perspective, I think almost it it seems like it will just be easier

58:46and easier to do things as the tools improve. So it's not like you're going to get left behind. It'll become easier to jump in whenever you want to in the future like most tools are. So you're not it's not you're not in much danger to just see how it goes in the future in that way. But yeah, I've seen a lot of interesting things with people being able to build their own generators that can generate different textures, images, and things. And they can tweak the settings, I guess, things like uh Fable they've been using, things like that. So yeah, I'm kind of fascinated by that at the moment. I want to look more into that of just being able to build your own custom tools

59:21to make your own custom assets in that way. That that's more interesting to have a lot more control over what you're generating. That that seems interesting to me. So I will be spending a little bit of time on that. Nice. All right. Well, uh I think we're getting getting close to time here. Uh, so I'll ask you the question I ask everybody to end the show, which is, uh, what's a person or people out there that have inspired you in your work that you'd recommend others check out? Yeah, I'm I'm going to say Jasper Hower, I believe, is how you say his name. He does the the dark room

59:52app now. But I one of the app icons I loved the most when I got started in this and I wanted to make app icons was the app zapper the little ray gun the green ray gun app and that that his his work and the disco app as well and just the the stuff that he did at the time the those were so cool and so detailed that you don't see his app icon work so much anymore now because he does dark room and stuff except for the the amazing alternates he does with dark room but if you if you see his older work if you look that does some some really great stuff that he he used

1:00:24to do there. It's crazy how much like him and uh the panic people and that that delicious era of Mac apps like there's a lineage that really starts there uh that you can trace through everything. Um and it's so cool. It it is as I always say when I was a kid that was my dream and it's still my dream now is to just to try and be as cool make as cool a stuff as what they were doing back then is that's that's my hope. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you for your time. This was uh super fun. It was anytime I can get somebody from New Zealand. I think are you number are you number three? I mean,

1:01:03I'm counting uh Riley Test who he he spent some time in New Zealand, but he's not, you know, currently there. Also has a North American accent. Um, [laughter] but then Devon Davies, obviously, who's uh basically your neighbor, I think, as everybody in New Zealand is neighbors with each other. Uh, but it's more challenging for you uh with time zones, but I appreciate you making the time for us to for us to hang out. No worries. Very happy to. I appreciate for having me on. Uh, so where can people find you and your work? You can find me at matthewscles.com or I'm on

1:01:35XMatthew Skyles or Mastadon or Blue Sky as well. Yeah, those are the places I usually hang out. You can you can follow my work. I post app icons pretty often. Every time somebody says it's out, you it's launched. You can show it off. I'm like, yes, I can show off another one. You had like physical representations of yours at this dubdub, right? Cuz they had that video at the end. I I did. Yeah. Tide Guide was in the the the rap music video. That was pretty cool. He holds it up and says Tide Guide. That's that's that's a pretty unique experience. I don't know if I can

1:02:04top that. [laughter] All right. We'll see. We'll see you next year. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see what you can do next year. Uh awesome. All right. Well, thanks again for coming on. Um no worries at all. And thank you all for uh listening. So, Launched is a part of the Revenue podcast family. Uh, if you want to learn more about the growth side of the mobile app business, you can check out SubClub, which is the podcast hosted my by my good friend and colleague David Barard. Um, and then you can check out revenuecat.com to learn about the easiest way to grow and monetize your mobile app business. And of course, learn more about launched at launchedfm.com. And if you

1:02:42want to see uh our pretty faces or your little app icon grid that you held up uh in the middle there, check out the YouTube channel cuz this is a video podcast now. Uh so [music] definitely do that and you can find that at launchfm uh.com. All right, I'll see you all in two weeks. Bye. [music]