A book titled everything starts as a square

“This method of designing icons is genius. I wish I had known this method a lot sooner.”

Stacey Solomon, Founder at Retail Park

Get lost in the world of icon design.

A book and video course that teaches you how to design your own icons from scratch.

“Everything Starts as a Square” is a book and video course that teaches you a simple method to designing icons that anyone can learn.

Before I learned how to design icons myself, I always imagined that they were drawn by hand using the pen tool, some sort of fancy graphics tablet, and hours and hours spent manually fine-tuning bezier curves.

But it turns out this isn’t how great icon designers work at all.

In “Everything Starts as a Square”, you’ll learn the systems experts use to create pixel perfect icons, without relying on a steady hand.

By the end of the book, you’ll have all the confidence you need to dig in and start creating beautiful icons that can hold their own against any of the sets you can find online.

Get two free chapters straight to your inbox

Table of contents

Get a look at all of the content covered in the book. Everything you need to know is inside.

“Everything Starts as a Square” is comprised of 240 tightly edited, highly visual pages designed to teach you everything you need to know about icon design with no unnecessary filler.

  1. Getting started

  2. Fundamentals

Screencasts

Over an hour of high quality, step-by-step video content to sharpen your icon design workflow.

Learn how to design your very first icons in a series of screencasts that will teach you everything you need to know to go from beginner to pro in just over an hour.

  1. Screenshot of Getting started with Figma

    Getting started with Figma

    Get familiar with the Figma UI, the different tools it offers, and the most important features.

  2. Screenshot of Setting up your artboard

    Setting up your artboard

    Learn how to create a new artboard and configure your grid and rulers for designing icons.

  3. Screenshot of Designing your first icon

    Designing your first icon

    Using basic shapes and boolean operations, learn how to design your own notification icon from scratch.

  4. Screenshot of Advanced design techniques

    Advanced design techniques

    Learn the techniques you need to know to adapt your original icon to a modern duotone style.

Resources

Tools and resources you can use to get started even faster and progress even further.

Design assets, icon teardowns, and a community of fellow icon designers where you can ask questions, get feedback, and accelerate your learning.

  1. Figma logo in a grid design

    Figma icon templates

    Pefectly structured templates for quickly designing new icons at dozens of common sizes.

  2. Cursor hovering over a video player

    Weekly icon teardowns

    Weekly videos where we dissect and recreate beautiful icons we find on the web.

  3. Discord logo on a blue background

    Community of icon designers

    A private Discord server where you can get help and give feedback on each others' work.

Get the free sample chapters

Enter your email address and I’ll send you a sample from the book containing two of my favorite chapters.

Get two free chapters straight to your inbox

Pricing

Pick your package

“Everything Starts as a Square” is available in two different packages so you can pick the one that’s right for you.

Essential

The perfect starting point if you’re on a budget.

$15

  • The 240-page ebook
  • Figma icon templates
  • Community access
Get started

Complete

Everything icon resource you could ever ask for.

$229

  • The 240-page ebook
  • Figma icon templates
  • Over an hour of screencasts
  • Weekly icon teardowns
  • Community access
Get started

Some kind words from early customers...

I worked with a small group of early access customers to make sure all of the content in the book was exactly what they needed. Hears what they had to say about the finished product.

Headshot of Mira Lindehoff

Author

Mira Lindehoff – Hey there, I’m the author behind ‘Everything Starts as a Square’.

I’ve been designing icons professionally for over a decade and have worked with dozens of the biggest brands to create custom sets for their products. I’m an accomplished conference speaker, and have been teaching icon design workshops every month for the last three years. I’ve worked with designers of all skill levels and honed my way of teaching to really click for anyone who has the itch to start designing their own icons.

Follow on Twitter