Rockstar Icon Designer - Kate McInnes [36]
One of the advantages of using Adobe CS4 and above is how seamlessly you can work between working environments. If you're creating vectors you`ll notice that it's extremely easy to copy the shape from a Photoshop document and paste it into an Illustrator document while keeping the editability of the shape. This trick comes in handy when you need to make a complex illustration or icon that requires Photoshop rendering and vector shapes. You will find that drawing a complex vector shape with Adobe Illustrator's drawing tools is easier than creating the same shape in Photoshop.
Export Settings
The most popular export options for glyph style icons are transparent PNG and EPS vector. If you're exporting PNG from Adobe Illustrator CS5 and above, make sure the anti-aliasing is set to Art Optimized, for all versions make sure that the background is set to transparent and the resolution is set to your target output.
Setting the resolution of the output can be a handy tool when creating icons as both interface elements and illustration. Which is sometimes the case when designers need to supply image assets for both screen and print.
Another handy feature in Illustrator CS4 and above is the ability to export images from multiple artboards at once. You can make these setting adjustments in the Export dialogue options.
Export images from multiple artboards.
Creating a Graphic Set for Illustrator and a Symbol Set for Photoshop
Illustrator
You can also use vector objects from Adobe Illustrator in symbol libraries for both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Making libraries is a good way to have all the icons you need ready to use at the click of a button.
Web icons in Adobe Illustrator.
To make icon libraries in Illustrator is easy, select the icon you would like to use and drag it into the Symbols library or press F8. Once you have the symbols that you want to make into a library, delete the symbols you don't want and then save the custom icons into a library by going to Save Symbol Library from the Symbols panel menu.
Photoshop
To make symbols from Illustrator shapes in Photoshop is a little bit trickier, but not totally impossible. To make symbols from Illustrator shapes, first make a new document in Photoshop, any size is fine, as long as it's large enough for all of the designs you want to use. Then copy the glyphs you want to use in Illustrator and go into Photoshop and paste them into the new document you made. You will be prompted to paste the icons in a few different ways, choose the paste as Shape Layer and click OK. With the Direct Selection tool (A) select the symbol you would like to make into a custom shape and go to Edit > Define Custom Shape. You will be prompted to name the shape, do that and press OK. You will now have a custom icon shape. Repeat this for each icon and you will have a custom set of glyphs for Adobe Photoshop.
Creating a symbol set in Adobe Photoshop.
To save these icons as a set that you can load whenever you need, go to Edit > Preset Manager and select Custom Shapes from the drop down menu. Hold Command and click on the designs you want to include in the set or Shift to select a range of designs. When you're finished you can save the set. If you save your files to the default preset location you will be able to navigate to your icons from the drop down menu in Photoshop. (You can of course save the file to any location you like.)
Front View Icons
A front view icon, as opposed to a zero-point perspective icon is drawn in a similar style without any distinguishable vanishing points, but has added light and shade to create depth and the illusion of space. If you're drawing icons for a mobile device, then zero-point perspective is the best method as the various mobile operating systems will add shadow effects to the icon in-program.
The viewing angle for front view icons.
Front view icons were made popular with Mac OS X, but the same principles applies to Toolbar icons for Microsoft and Linux-style icons. Make sure that you check the different