Rockstar Icon Designer - Kate McInnes [19]
Clear and simple icons are best suited for use with Toolbars and web designs. Points to take into consideration when creating a clean style icon set are:
Divide a piece of paper into a grid of squares and use the space to illustrate all of the designs side by side. Drawing into the square will help you visualize the canvas space for each design. Working like this will help balance the designs when they appear next to one another.
Use as much of the space as possible while keeping the elements to a minimum. Remember that this style of icon is commonly viewed at smaller scales.
Choose a color palette before you begin to render the final designs. The use of a color palette will help to tie the designs together, if you chose the colors as you work the icons may gradually change and you will end up with a mismatched set.
If you need to make shades of a particular color, use the HSB color sliders in your graphics program. HSB stands for Hue, Saturation, Brightness, so when you use this method you can keep the exact color your working with and introduce light and shade in a way that doesn't muddy the image.
Freshy icons by Martin Karasek.
3. Creative and Informative
Icon replacement sets have grown in popularity over the years and are often made by icon designers looking to break away from traditional icon design. Websites such as deviantART support large communities of icon designers who create free icon replacement sets purely for the joy of icon design.
If you're going to make an experimental or non-traditional icon set, you can let your imagination run wild, but as always there are a few rules that should be observed so the set is also suitable for practical use.
Carefully plan the style that you want to use and think about how it would look at different scales. How small and large will your icons appear? Before you start to create the entire set, make a few rendering tests and refine the style accordingly.
Carefully chose the perspective the icons will be rendered in and apply it to each design. Mixed perspective will confuse the set.
While creativity is a key factor for this kind of icon, you need to make sure that the metaphors are still clearly understandable to the audience. An abstract icon is unlikely to be used if it has no apparent function.
Save time and make a list of all the icons and their metaphors first. Once you have a clear understanding of the icons that you are drawing, apply the style. If you draw stylistic icons from your mind without a plan you can often end up with a mismatching set.
Test, test, test! Be sure to test your icon set on various colored backgrounds and screen resolutions. This applies to all icon sets, but is particularly important for creative icons as they stand out more than traditional designs and any flaws will be noticed quickly.
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Summer, Love & Cicadas Icon Set by Teekatas Suwannakrua
My previous two icon sets have a flaw; the icons have too much of a ‘handmade' feel, to the point that I think it stands out too much in a polished environment like the computer desktop screen. I need something more balanced that can co-exist in digital environment well.
So I spent more time in this icon set, trying to polish the outline and the coloring process. Although I'm really satisfied with the result, I also learned another lesson from this icon set: because I didn't polish the outer most outline of icons, the jagged edge of these icons looked quite ugly on a dark background. Now I always remember to double check the outer most outline of each icon in my icon set.
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4. Pictograms
Pictograms are simplified icons that represent a real world object. A language of their own, they are often used as signs and illustrated instructions to reinforce meaning and signify important information. More recently pictograms have been used for smartphones and software to create clutter free interfaces that quickly and clearly mark out points for user interaction.
Pictograms may look like an easy style of icon