One of the great things about the App Store is that it inspires so much creativity from designers, it seems like there’s great new ideas for interfaces and interactions every week that delights the design community.

There’s one sub-section of mobile design that never seems to get enough exposure – App Store icon design. It seems to have developed into its own art form, with immensely talented icon designers finding more and more clever ways to showcase the app in a small square space.

I can’t say it enough – never underestimate the importance of a great app icon. It’s the first thing a user sees before downloading your app (I’ve downloaded apps in the past solely on the icon making the app seem interesting).

Agencies never seem to make decent ones for their clients. It’s really easy – 1) Put £500-800 of your budget aside, 2) Contact one of the guys below 3) Get your gorgeous app icon made.

You can watch a great video of one of the designers making a icon here. Or if you fancy making your own, here’s a handy iOS icon PSD template that resizes and exports using actions.

Update: Many people have asked what these icons would look like at 57×57 and 114×114, check out http://iicns.com/ to toggle between sizes

Here are my favourites:

By Ramotion

By Roman Jusdado

By Konstantin Datz

By Konstantin Datz

By Konstantin Datz

By Aditya Nugraha Putra

By Saturized

By Konstantin Datz

By Dash

By Ryan Ford

By Roman Jusdado

By Artem Borysenko

By Ryan Ford

By Mario Bieh

By Konstantin Datz

By David Im

By Roman Jusdado

By Oleg Sheremet

By Erfan Nuriyev

By Umar Irshad

By Dash

By Erfan Nuriyev

By SoftFacade