Icons gallery

I love creating icons! It's amazing how much you can show with such a small pixilated image. Over the years I have built lots of websites and many of them have required icons. Sometimes they are used to represent different sections within a site, in other instances a visual reference is required to depict a feature, services or product. Icons can also be used as buttons or controls on an interface. But I think icons can also look beautiful just by themselves, they don't need to have a purpose other then as an interesting design element.

Creating an icon in Photoshop

There is definitely an art to creating a good icon and there are several tricks that I use when I build one. I like to draw them carefully pixel by pixel in Photoshop with two windows open at once. I have one window showing the icon at its normal small size and another window where I have the icon zoomed in so it fills the rest of the screen. This way I can easily draw the pixels exactly where I want them on the large image and I can immediately see what it will look like at 100% size in the small window. Using this method I can power along building icons quite quickly.

The colours in an icon are often very important. Because you are creating an image with such a small grid of pixels, you need to convey as much information as possible with each dot. By choosing colours effectively you can make the image much clearer. A good example of this may be when you are creating an icon of a product. If people identify with the product by its colours then it's important to use those exact colours in the icon. When I'm in this situation I like to have another window in Photoshop with a photo of the product. As I'm drawing the icon I use my eyedropper tool to pick the exact colours from the photo. This is another neat trick.

Using my icons for yourself

I have many people asking me if they can use my icons and I generally allow it. I only ask for a couple of things in return. First, contact me and tell me what you plan to do and which icons you need. And secondly, if I give you permission then I normally ask for you to link to me from your website. Not too much to ask for the use of my icons!

Converting a GIF image into an icon file

The icons that are displayed here are just gif files with transparant backgrounds. If you need them as real icons or cursors then you can easily convert a GIF file to an ICO file file wih many icon programs. My favourite is IconForge, it has a lot of neat features, it's easy to use and you can download a trial in a few minutes.

Pixel art

Icons have a style all of there own, they are sharp, clear and somewhat simplified in design and always small. Many people have been attracted to this style perhaps because it looks so precise. Some artists have taken things further by creating large artworks in a pixel-perfect fashion, these images are very detailed, almost complicated in parts and amazing to explore. Naturally art like this requires an enormous amount of effort to produce but the effect is fantastic. One of my favourite artists that work in this style is Eboy. I highly recommend you visit www.eboy.com. Eboy creates all sorts of pixel art including cityscapes with buildings, people, cars, planes plus other weird creatures and designs. He also has lots of cool icons.