Icons posts

I was having a chat with a friend of mine recently and somehow we got onto the subject of hidden messages in Apple icons. Admittedly it’s not something I’d thought too much about prior to this conversation and the only example I could recall was the “Here’s to the crazy ones…” quote on the TextEdit icon. However, a quick search online revealed that there is in fact quite a few.

This got me thinking, if Apple have hidden messages in...

I had created some neat icons for a website redesign I was doing, and I previewed the new site on an old iPad. The layout looked OK at normal size, but zooming in to part of the page, I suddenly saw that my icon was a blurry mess, while the text-based header was still crisp and sharp. On a newer Retina-display iPad, the icons didn’t look quite sharp, even at normal size.

The first idea I had was to create double-sized sprite images, setting them to display at half their size using CSS. While this made them look better...

When creating website designs, it’s almost impossible to leave out icons. They help visualize pieces of copy and are absolutely necessary in a detailed and consistent website. Icons create a heightened user-experience and are typically included in all websites.

What I dislike most about icons is the time it takes to make them.

Yes, there are iconsets already out there. I could search the world wide web for the right icon but I always feel like there’s something wrong with them.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true: our sister-site MightyDeals.com is 2 years old. Hard to believe, because it’s only been 2 years since probably the best resource on the net for deals on plugins, clip art, apps and all sort of goodies at huge discounts from some of the web’s finest resources.

The list of past deals is pretty incredible, it’s amazing that we’re able to negotiate these kind of discounts day in, day out.

However, every once in a while we come out with an extra special...

Most web pros can’t make it through a week without falling back on some else’s work: you may be a great programmer, but can you illustrate? You may be a great icon designer, but do you understand type?

We don’t all have a studio of colleagues to pass work off to. Some of us have no choice but to take the bull by the horns.

When you’re desperately...

What is the fascination with clouds? Ever since the first iPhone brought a weather app to our pockets designers have been drawing them.

Perhaps it’s because, as British diplomats were taught in the nineteenth century, the weather is the only polite way to start a conversation; a subject that affects us all equally and for which no one can be blamed.

Perhaps it’s because clouds are one of the few aspects of the landscape...

Icon fonts are incredibly useful when designing a site, and have a huge number of advantages over regular icons.

Because they are delivered as a font file and embedded like a font, these icons are easily scalable, their color can be altered live, rather than having to edit images; along with that, various effects can be added via coding, such as shadows, stroke effects, or gradients, making...

We’re back with some more good free goodness.

Today’s freebies is a set of 40 fantastic icons called Bluetron. They are available as PNG files (256 x 256px). You can use them for free for both personal and commercial purposes. Attribution is not necessary, but will be appreciated.

The icons were designed by Waqas Ahmed who’s the founder and blogger of The Art Times and Lead Designer at Iconic Graphics. Check out his site for some more amazing freebies, inspirations, design resources and designer interviews.

Redistribution...

Are those design resources drying up? Well, it’s time for more freebies!

This week’s freebie isn’t just a single freebie item, but a bundle of awesome design resources! The bundle is a teaser from the FanExtra designer members area which contains over 2000 quality design files, plus weekly advanced Photoshop tutorials!

This bundle includes: A grungy rock texture set (6 high res textures), a high res watercolor Photoshop brush set (10 brushes), a set of 9 red vector ribbon illustrations (fully scalable) and a set of 6 web icons (fully scalable).

Each of these freebies, as with all FanExtra resources are free for use in personal and commercial projects,...

And here’s our new ZeroBundle! This is our second ZeroBundle, and this time we put the focus on icons! Everyone loves icons and this massive bundle includes hundreds of exclusive and amazing icons from great designers.

Thanks to these wonderful designers for their contribution: Umar Irshad, Pink Moustache, Launched Pixels, Larsson Patrik, Kamil Khadeyev, IconDeposit, Von Glitschka, FreshPixels, Asif Aleem, FanExtra, Matthew Skiles, Jamie Peak, Dave McNally, Alessio Atseni, Valery Zanimanski and Nicholas Craig.

If you still don’t know why it’s called ZeroBundle, its because it’s 100% free, with ‘zero’ cost to you. The bundle is brought by WebdesignerDepot and MightyDeals.com where you can find the best deals for web professionals.

The bundle will remain active for only...

It’s Friday and we’re back with yet another freebie!

This week’s freebie is a set of 50 minimalist icons designed exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by Patrik Larsoon from SimplyPixels, a self taught web designer from Sweden with a passion for creativity and design.

Icons are provided as transparent PNG files and are free for use in personal and commercial projects, with no attribution required.

Redistribution is not allowed, so if you’d...