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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-28T17:03:06+00:00

I spent some time trying to generate certain tab icons using Android Asset Studio

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I spent some time trying to generate certain tab icons using Android Asset Studio.
I was obtaining again and again strange results: The generated icons had the same shape than the input png file I was using, but they were either all white (for the selected icon) or all gray (for the unselected icon).

After verifying that my image indeed have a transparent background as required by the tool, first I thought there is a bug on it, but then I read the guidelines for tab icons design and they say there that tab icons have to be ‘matte’ (I spent some time trying to figure out what do they mean with that). Literally: Tab icons are flat, matte, and pictured face-on, and the icons files I was using had color.

My conclusion is that Asset Studio (that seems to be the “official” tool to do this) is enforcing this convention. Is that correct?.
My main question is why I am not supposed to use colors in the tab icons ?, is it just an arbitrary decision trying to make look Android applications more homogenous ?.

I was tempted to generate my color tab icons using another tool, but I saw in the same page examples of what you should never do with tab icons, and they show icons with colors there. So before taking a decision I came to see my stackoverflow friends for feedback.

Thanks!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Android Design Guidelines are likely proscribing that all tab icons should be monochrome because the focus of a user’s interaction with the app should be on the content, not the interface elements. Color is a powerful design element and a colored icon can draw too much attention to itself and away from the content. Monochrome icons allows the user’s content to take a prime spot, with nav. icons playing a consistently supportive role in a user interface. Plus, the monochrome icons will make your app a good Android citizen because icons will be consistent with other apps and will look the way users expect them to look.

    Mac OS’s menu bar icons have the same design guideline regarding color usage. The problems there can be even more pronounced as third party apps put their icons there. If every one of them wanted to compete for user’s attention by using their brand’s (or otherwise intense) color, a menu bar becomes a theme park rather soon.

    I’d personally stick with the monochrome icons, as recommended in the guidelines.

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