Re: Icon creation tool
Re: Icon creation tool
- Subject: Re: Icon creation tool
- From: Laurence Harris <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 00:33:43 -0400
On Jul 8, 2007, at 9:57 PM, Chris Williams wrote:
All excellent points, but for may uses, I prefer to simply google "mac
icons". There are many people making icons. Some are freeware,
some are
quite inexpensive shareware, some are more expensive. Like most
things, you
get what you pay for. But you can find a wide range of them and
often don't
need to reinvent them.
True. It really depends on your needs. I looked around at various
packages of readymade icons for my last release and there just wasn't
anything anywhere near suitable available. I tried a couple of cheap
designers and was very disappointed with what they were sending me. I
finally bit the bullet, hired a well-established icon design company
and ended up with some really nice stuff.
My main point, though, was that you probably shouldn't try to do them
yourself. Even more so IMO if doing them yourself means buying
software and learning to use that software.
Larry
On 7/8/07 5:47 PM, "Laurence Harris" <email@hidden> wrote:
The vast majority of developers don't have the talent and skills
necessary to produce good icons for Mac OS X. (And that's okay. No
one is expected to do everything well.) Back when all you needed were
a few 32x32, 8-bit icons for the application and documents, you could
often work up something yourself that looked decent. Now, with
128x128 32-bit icons with transparency and toolbars, homemade icons
really stand out, and not in a good way. Photoshop doesn't make you
an icon designer if you don't have the talent and experience any more
than a box of brushes and paints make you an artist. No software
will.
Toolbar icons, being smaller than Finder icons are a little more
within the reach of those of us lacking graphic design skills, but
they bring different challenges to the table: quantity and
consistency. While you may only need two or three Finder icons, you
might need 10, 20, or more toolbar icons. Not only do you then have
to create a bunch of decent-looking icons, but they all need to share
a common look, or theme. Ten nice icons in a toolbar that have 10
different looks will still look bad.
If at all possible, you should consider hiring a professional to do
your icons. Use some you whip up during development so you know
exactly what you want when you talk to a designer, but let someone
who's really good at icons do them. The good icon artists aren't
cheap, but if you consider the value of your time and how long it's
going to take you to create something that looks decent, it doesn't
cost that much more to get something that looks awesome, and you can
use that time doing something you actually do well.
Note, though, that lots of people already know what I just said, so
the better icon designers tend to be booked up. Don't assume these
guys are waiting around to get started on your icons. They're busy.
Contact them ahead of time to determine their availability so you
don't end up waiting for icons to release your product.
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