Iconify my site. Do this now.

October 31, 2007 9:49 AM

How long should it take to create icon sets?

I have always been under the impression that nice icons take many hours of squinting each, but perhaps I am wrong, and I should be able to create entire icon sets in an hour. Any insight from an actual designer?

posted by shownomercy to work & money (12 comments total)

This is an example of "how long is a piece of string".

What icons? For what? How many? Being created for whom? On what kind of site?

It might be possible to do in five minutes. Or it could take a week.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:55 AM on October 31, 2007

It depends on your skill level, how intricate the icons are, what software you use, etc. I used to make icons (hence my username) and it would take me about 30-45 minutes to make a single icon, old skool pixel style- that is, no beveled edges, drop shadows, glassy shines, etc....just flat pixel style. With most icon software, there's no squinting. You work on a blown up grid, and off to the side there's a true-to-scale icon box that you can refer to as you work to see what the finished product will look like.
posted by iconomy at 10:00 AM on October 31, 2007

It all depends on what sort of icons you want. They are harder to make than they seem. There are lots of free or royalty free options as well. For example you can search for free icons, or go to istockphoto and look around.
posted by milarepa at 10:02 AM on October 31, 2007

Having worked on projects that contained icon creation as one of many tasks, my only insight is that icons are always late and take much longer then you expect. I have no idea why, but it's always behind.
posted by GuyZero at 10:12 AM on October 31, 2007

Experienced icon guy here. SDB has it right, it depends.
Additionally: Are the icons nouns or verbs? Verbs are much more difficult to conceptualize icon-wise.
Are the icons to be photo-real or more cartoony?
How many versions of each icon are needed, i.e. for rollover states, or different sizes?
Are the icons variations on a theme, a set of smileys for instance?
Is the client a PITA who wants a million revisions?
All these factors will affect the hours needed for the project.

The big challenge (as well as my secret weapon) is that you have to think in a very cartoony way to make a successful icon. I don't mean cartoony like Snoopy or Batman; I mean cartoony as in choosing only the most crucial visual elements needed to make your point. Scott McCloud calls this Amplification through Simplification. It allows the viewer to glean exactly what the narrative of the icon is without having to look at it for more than a second or two. If you have some skill in this, you get a substantial boost in icon creation speed.
posted by Scoo at 10:19 AM on October 31, 2007

Q: How long should it take to create icon sets?
A: They take as long as they take.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:43 AM on October 31, 2007

Q: How long should it take to create icon sets?
A: Way more time than it takes to buy them off istock for under ten bucks.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:13 AM on October 31, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

DarlingBri's got it. If you're not a designer, don't waste your time creating icons from scratch. famfamfam is another great resource, with lots of free icons covering most generic uses.
posted by mkultra at 11:35 AM on October 31, 2007

Why bother?
posted by designbot at 11:49 AM on October 31, 2007

I recently designed a set of roughly 60 icons, based on designs given to me - I essentially reskinned them. Starting with an Adobe Illustrator template with all of the individual icons on one layer - I copied the vectors into Photoshop and then applied layer effects yada yada filters etc etc exported using a handy little batch tool to the final completed theme file.

The whole process, working a 9-5 Monday to Friday, gathering the relevant resources and research and getting a sign off at each stage or conducting the relevant changes took two solid weeks, maybe a few days more.
posted by stackhaus23 at 12:08 PM on October 31, 2007

The vector-aware can shorten the development time considerably using Inkscape/Illustrator, and then doing minor touchups for each size. Of course, that's after coming up with ideas... (On preview, what stackhaus23 said, although I'd follow a different workpath for original icons and do the bulk of the work in a real vector program.)
posted by anaelith at 3:20 PM on October 31, 2007

Yes, I do use inkscape and occasionally other vector programs. As a result, I can often make icon sets in a few hours. Not complex ones, though ;)

However, this is more (I think) an issue of someone trying to push waaayyy too much work on me than is reasonable. Thanks for the sanity check.

Of course I know about stock icons. Surely if you are a designer or somesuch, you realize the problem with telling your clients "Sorry, I can't make you any custom icons, because it would be reinventing the wheel."
posted by shownomercy at 11:13 AM on November 1, 2007