Android Cheatsheet for Graphic Designers

Graphic designers aren't programmers and sometimes don't know how to properly prepare graphic assets for developers. This simple cheatsheet should help them to do their job better, and to simplify developers' lives.

Content

Dimensions

Screen densities and icon dimensions

Qualifier DPI Scaling factor Launcher icon Action bar, tab icon Notification icon (API 11) Notification icon (API 9) Notification icon (older) ldpi 120 0.75 36 x 36

32 x 32 24 x 24

18 x 18 18 x 18

16 x 16 12 x 19

12 x 12 19 x 19

16 x 16 mdpi 160 1.0 48 x 48

42 x 42 32 x 32

24 x 24 24 x 24

22 x 22 16 x 25

16 x 16 25 x 25

21 x 21 hdpi 240 1.5 72 x 72

64 x 64 48 x 48

36 x 36 36 x 36

33 x 33 24 x 38

24 x 24 38 x 38

32 x 32 xhdpi 320 2.0 96 x 96

84 x 84 64 x 64

48 x 48 48 x 48

44 x 44 32 x 50

32 x 32 50 x 50

42 x 42 xxhdpi 480 3.0 144 x 144

126 x 126 96 x 96

72 x 72 72 x 72

66 x 66 48 x 75

48 x 48 75 x 75

63 x 63

Notice: the first icon dimension in table cell is full asset size, the second icon dimension is optical square. Dimension values are in pixels.

Tip: creating ldpi assets is not really needed anymore. The devices are rare and the platform will just scale down mdpi.

Sources and useful links: Iconography, Supporting Multiple Screens, Icon Design Guidelines, Dimension

Google Play asset dimensions

Asset Type Required Image type Dimension Screenshot yes JPEG or 24-bit PNG

(no alpha) min length for any side: 320 px

max length for any side: 3840 px High-res app icon yes 32-bit PNG

(with alpha) 512 x 512 px Feature graphic yes JPEG or 24-bit PNG

(no alpha) 1024 x 500 px Promotional graphic no JPEG or 24-bit PNG

(no alpha) 180 x 120 px Video link no URL of YouTube video -

Sources and useful links: Graphic and Image Assets, Google Play Featured-Image Guidelines, Iconography

Dimension units

Unit Units / physical inch Density independent Same physical size on every screen px varies no no in 1 yes yes mm 25.4 yes yes pt 72 yes yes dp ~160 yes no sp ~160 yes no

Sources and useful links: Understanding Density Independence in Android

Size buckets

Type Dimension Handset smaller than 600 dp Tablet larger than or equal 600 dp

Notice: one dp (density-independent pixel) is one pixel on a 160 DPI screen.

Sources and useful links: Metrics and Grids

Views dimensions and spacing

Touchable UI components are generally laid out along 48 dp units. Spacing between each UI element is 8 dp.

Sources and useful links: Metrics and Grids

Action bar height

Qualifier Dimension Portrait 48 dp Landscape 40 dp Tablet 56 dp

Sources and useful links: Action Bar

Text size

Type Dimension Micro 12 sp Small 14 sp Medium 18 sp Large 22 sp

Notice: one sp (scale-independent pixel) is one pixel on a 160 DPI screen if the user's global text scale is set to 100%.

Sources and useful links: Typography

Images and themes

Nine-patch

A Nine-patch drawable is a stretchable bitmap image, which Android will automatically resize to accommodate the contents of the view in which you have placed it as the background, e.g. nine-patch background for button, which must stretch to accommodate strings of various lengths. The rules for nine-patch image are following:

Standard PNG image with alpha

Filename suffix is ".9.png" , e.g. "btn_login_normal.9.png"

, e.g. "btn_login_normal.9.png" Image has an extra 1 pixel wide border , used to define the stretchable/static/padding areas

, used to define the stretchable/static/padding areas Stretchable sections are indicated by 1 px wide black line(s) in the left and top part of the border

sections are indicated by 1 px wide line(s) in the part of the border Static sections are indicated by fully transparent or white pixels

sections are indicated by fully or white pixels Padding area (optional) is indicated by 1 px wide black line in the right and bottom part of the border

Sources and useful links: Canvas and Drawables, Draw 9-patch, Simple Nine-patch Generator

Colors

Use color primarily for emphasis. Blue is the standard accent color in Android's color palette. Note that red and green may be indistinguishable to color-blind users. Primary colors are as follows:

#33B5E5

#AA66CC

#99CC00

#FFBB33

#FF4444

#0099CC

#9933CC

#669900

#FF8800

#CC0000

Sources and useful links: Color

Holo themes

Android provides three system themes:

Holo Light

Holo Dark

Holo Light with dark action bar

Sources and useful links: Themes, Holo Everywhere

Naming conventions

Naming conventions for drawables

File names must contain only lowercase a-z, 0-9, or _.

Drawables for the specific views (ListView, TextView, EditText, ProgressBar, CheckBox etc.) should be named like this views keeping the naming rules, e.g. drawable for CheckBox should be named "checkbox_on_bg.png".

Asset Type Prefix Example Action bar ab_ ab_stacked.9.png Button btn_ btn_send_pressed.9.png Dialog dialog_ dialog_top.9.png Divider divider_ divider_horizontal.9.png Icon ic_ ic_star.png Menu menu_ menu_submenu_bg.9.png Notification notification_ notification_bg.9.png Tabs tab_ tab_pressed.9.png

Sources and useful links: naming conventions taken from the Android SDK

Naming conventions for icon assets

Asset Type Prefix Example Icons ic_ ic_star.png Launcher icons ic_launcher ic_launcher_calendar.png Action bar icons ic_menu ic_menu_archive.png Status bar icons ic_stat_notify ic_stat_notify_msg.png Tab icons ic_tab ic_tab_recent.png Dialog icons ic_dialog ic_dialog_info.png

Sources and useful links: Icon Design Guidelines

Naming conventions for selector states

State Suffix Example Normal _normal btn_order_normal.9.png Pressed _pressed btn_order_pressed.9.png Focused _focused btn_order_focused.9.png Disabled _disabled btn_order_disabled.9.png Selected _selected btn_order_selected.9.png

Sources and useful links: Touch Feedback

Organizing drawables to directories

One drawable must have the same file name for all screen densities (ldpi, mdpi, hdpi etc.) and all these files must be organized according to density into the following directories. Here's the resources directory structure for drawables:

res drawable-ldpi drawable-mdpi drawable-hdpi drawable-xhdpi drawable-xxhdpi



Resources

Graphic generators

Download

Android Icon Templates Pack v4.0

Source: Android Developers

Android Design 11/2013

Source: Android Developers

Android UI Design Kit PSD 4.4

Source: Taylor Ling on Android UI & UX

Android Developer Icons – Photoshop Shapes

Source: Spiderfly Apps

Written by

Copyright © 2013 Petr Nohejl, www.petrnohejl.cz

Document was last modified .

Found some mistake? Something is missing? Let me know or send pull request.

Thanks to Peter Kahoun for KUCSS and Google Android for great documentation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.