Useful Tips for Designing Brilliant Icons

Icons are the signs and sentinels that guide visitors through the digital world. Computer users have become accustomed to clicking on a miniature disk to save, a tiny printer to print or an open folder to open a document. All symbols logically relate to their function making it simple for users to navigate. So how do we design an effective icon? Here are all the tips that I can find to help you answer the question.
 
This is the guide for designing an icon from Mac OS X and is extremely useful. It covers the overall philosophy behind icons and shows how to design application, document, toolbar, and other types of icons for Mac OS X.
 
 
The article is as interesting as its title. Denis Kortunov has identified and share with us the ten common mistakes that designers always make when designing an icon. This is a must-read!
 
 
Different icons can be drawn for each and every object. They can appear in any variations such as style, color, perspective and even metaphor. The latter is the most valuable in icon design where if the metaphor is original and humorous, it turns out to be not just an ordinary icon. This is another great article from Denis Kortunov. Check it out!
 
 
Sometimes we were asked why we draw an icon in Photoshop instead of Illustrator since a vector file can be stretched to any size without loss of details. Josh has explained very well on their differences by comparing bitmap with vector icons.
 
 
Before approaching icon design, there are some guidelines and principles that are worth studying. If you want to create effective icon designs, then you should take a holistic approach to issues such as audience, size, simplicity, lighting, perspective, and style. These seven principles of effective icon design is written by Sean Hodge from PSDTUTS.
 
 
Translating the ‘iconic’ features of an object into something that is metaphorically meaningful and instantly recognizable is no easy task . Chris Spooner will share with us ten wise tips on how to create outstanding icons. Must-read!
 
 
Cain Walsh will show you the flow for designing an icon from scratch.
 
 
Gary Gehiere is one of the most respected and revered icon designers in the Macintosh icon community. Macinstruct is sharing with us on how they worked with Gary to come up with an amazing set of icons for their website.
 
I am Johnson Koh, a graphic and web designer in Singapore. Founded 10Steps.SG in August 2008 with the purpose to share my experiments and interesting design news.

8 Comments | Write a Comment

  1. xmjay says:

    Very nice Icons.
    Big Thanx !

  2. Wow! Great compilation.
    Nice icons.
    Thanks for sharing.

  3. Wow, what a collection its inspired me lot.

  4. Very nice collection man, gotta try them out. Thanks.

  5. Melody says:

    I love the icons with the incredible detail..makes them really pop!

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