Help me make Awesome Icons!

February 6, 2007 6:42 AM

I need help with creating Icons for Windows applications.

I've been tasked with revamping our software's icons. To put it bluntly, they look terrible (think 1994 Windows style). I'm trying to bring everything up to date, but I can't find much in the way of resources.

Google just brings up dinky shareware programs that remind me of MS Paint, or they refer me to companies that provide icon sets. While some of these are nice, our industry is highly specialized and we need to make our own.

I think I'm set on the "Human-Interface, how brains think" end of the process. I'm more interested in the actual logistics of doing it. What are the programs used? I'm assuming photoshop, but is there a compilation (good website/book/anything) that takes you through the process, elucidating any techniques on how to make pictures that are tiny?

If it matters, these icons will be used in C++/C#/and Java applications.

posted by unexpected to computers & internet (9 comments total)

The Iconfactory has a Photoshop plug-in that takes care of most of the annoying fiddly bits for you. I haven't actually used the Windows version, but the Mac version is pretty straightforward. $70 and no support for Vista icons, though.
posted by mkultra at 7:13 AM on February 6, 2007

Are you talking about icons for the overall application itself, or are you talking about graphics within the application for toolbars and things like that? Because they're a bit different when it comes to the nuts and bolts of getting them in the right format, etc.
posted by chrismear at 7:21 AM on February 6, 2007

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posted by prostyle at 7:40 AM on February 6, 2007

Prostyle recommended Microangelo. I agree.
posted by chlorus at 7:45 AM on February 6, 2007

Microsoft also has a guide giving specific steps in Photoshop and other programs for constructing Windows XP-style icons. I think you'll find more articles like this if you search the MSDN site.
posted by zixyer at 8:00 AM on February 6, 2007

Well, most of those "dinky shareware programs" support Cut and Paste, right? Draw your icon in illustrator, photoshop, etc, and then just paste them into the programs. That's how I did Icons in the past, although I used Visual Studio's built-in icon editor.

If you're doing windows C++ programs, your company probably has a copy of Visual Studio somewhere.

The trick is getting the Icon embedded into the .exe file. Normally this means including it in a project when you build.

Java supports the use of any image you can load into the program as an icon for the corner of windows and so on, however you can't have an icon on a .jar file so that the icon shows up in windows explorer like you can on an EXE. If you're putting together an EXE bundled java project, you should be able to have a custom icon.

If your program uses an installer package, like installsheild (gag) you'll need to work with the person who does that to set custom icons for things on the start menu.
posted by delmoi at 8:03 AM on February 6, 2007

Alternatively you can just create your icons as PNG files and then use a conversion program (like png2ico) to convert them to ico files.

I think the guy who does my favorite icon sets uses Photoshop and a tablet and then converts them.
posted by JaredSeth at 9:16 AM on February 6, 2007

Homer Simpson says: "Can't someone do it ?"
posted by Webbster at 9:26 AM on February 6, 2007

Microsoft has some very good guidelines.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:27 PM on February 6, 2007