The icon of an application is the image of the application; the icon should communicate the real objective of the application. If the icon has a modern and professional look the application will have the same look, passing on to the end user relevant information about the application.

Designing and developing icons is a time consuming and tedious process. If you need an icon for a certain application, you should know that there are three ways to obtain one: to design and develop one by yourself, to use one of the free icons that can be found on the Internet or to hire a specialist or a specialized company to do the job for you. But if you want to have professional icon that will represent your application, especially if it is a commercial application, it is best to hire a specialist to do the job. If you’ll compare the professionally designed icons with the ones downloaded from the Internet you’ll certainly see the differences; the professional icons have smooth and well rounded edges, they are rich in color and have a dynamic look.

For the professional icon designers, making a professional icon is not that difficult; with the right software applications all you need is skills and creativity. As a professional icon designer you definitely have to have a lot of imagination and to be able to best understand what kind of icon your client is expecting from you. So before starting the actual design process of the required icon, the designer must have a brief meeting with the future beneficiary of the icon in order to understand very well what the client wants. The following step is to make a few sketches on a piece of paper, or the experimented designers will directly use an imaging program. Most designers say that having a simple sketch on a piece of paper is more helpful and will guide the entire design process. Making and having sketches on paper makes it easier to work with them; it is better to see them all in front of you and compare them, you can easily throw away the ones that you don’t like, you can add something to a sketch and make it look better. On the other hand, creating sketches directly in an imaging software has its advantages, the most important one being the possibility to minimize the icon to see how it looks like in its real size. When making the sketch you will also have to decide what type of icon you’ll be creating: glyphs, complete set or desktop set. If you decide for a complete set the right number of icons will be of 40 to 50 at least, and if you decide for a desktop set be sure not to forget any icon: My computer, network neighborhood, my documents, recycle bin, etc. Another thing that must be decided from the beginning is the color or colors of the icon. There are many colors that can be successfully used in the design of an icon, but the more colors you’ll use the more blurry will be the image when resized to its actual size.

Choosing the right colors must be done according to the “look and feel” of the targeted application. If the application has certain specific colors, the same colors must be used when designing the icon. Also, if the icon is for a business or commercial application the choice of color palette must be different then the palette for a game. Another thing to consider when choosing the color palette for an icon is that all the colors used must “look good” on more background colors. It is quite difficult to decide the color palette that will be used for an icon but it basically must look good in its actual size. Finding the right image for an icon is also important. The icon of an application must say almost all about the respective application. Showing an object is almost always the right way of communicating an idea. Also, instead of trying to represent an action (that can be rather difficult) use an object that shows the action. If you cannot use an object or replace an action with an associated object, try to use a visual analogy. After finding the right image for the icon test it, give it to someone else to look at it and test his reactions: if he understands the meanings of the icon immediately, whether he associates the icon with something else, etc. These kinds of tests can be also done by using the icon/icons together with the application in order to see if the user easily remembers the meanings of the icons, whether they can easily discriminate between similar tasks, etc. When you finally decide on an icon or set of icons that everyone likes, simplify the picture by taking out all the lines that can be removed without breaking the image. This is done in order to make the picture simpler and to clearly see it when minimized to the size that it normally must be.

At the end, when you have decided on a final form for the icon of the application, it comes the easy and fun part of the design process: the illustration of the icon. To make the icon look as real and dynamic as possible some design effects must be used, effects like: shadows, glows, shines, light, etc. Such effects should be applied with care because adding to many effects can make a picture look unreal, too crowded, strange etc., and the effects will minimize one another. On the other hand adding fewer effects can make a picture look sharp or out of place. The best way to decide how to illustrate your icon is to try several things until you find the right one for that specific icon. The final thing to be done is to integrate the new designed icon with the application software that was designed for. If you have chosen to work with a specialized icon designer, this will not be a problem. The integration of the icon into the application is also the job of the specialist so you’ll not have to worry about this problem.