Comments on my work

Hi,

I'm not really much of a 2D designer, and more of a programmer, but I'm working on a game juust myself and a 3D modeler/artist who doesn't know much about 2D. So, I decided to try my hand at some 2D design work/graphics...only for GUI menus and interfaces.

So here are 3 buttons. Copyright and all, so don't go stealing :P


Please tell me what you think. Keep in mind it's for an iPad game, with a cartoony style, so not realistic. What do you think of the actual design, so the icons, their placement on the buttons, the buttons style with 2 colours and the font. Do you think they "work" with each other?

Also, I have a friend who works with a professional graphic designer, who uses PhotoShop, and is always telling me to use it too. I actually used PowerPoint 2010 for these, as it provides powerful vector drawing abilities, and advanced font styles...do you think it matters what I use? Would you think "that looks like programmer art" if you saw it in an iPad game on the appStore?

Please make any comments, but constructive...if you don't like something, say how I could improve it.

Thanks.

PS. Do you ming me posting some more stuff as I go along to give me some pointers etc?