WebDev3000 » Icons

Pictoico

Codrut Nistor — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:56:57 +0000

I know this may not be exactly what most developers dream of getting for free, but having some simple yet clean looking icons at your disposal is always a good idea, and that’s why today I’ll point you to Pictoico…

Since everyone seems to be for or against globalization these days, Pictoico is for it, or so it seems. Why am I saying this? Just take a look at what they are saying – “We have been trying to properly communicate the visual way all the way from prehistoric days. Fast forward to today’s reality still shows a lack of proper manners in communication: being simple, easy to understand, quick and effective in conveying the message.” To put it in other words, they are trying to define their own symbol style that’s globally accepted. Will they succeed? That’s what remains to be seen…

… but now, what we have is this: over 100 pictograms freely available, with a plan to add up to 1000, all of them available in the SVG and AI formats. The only downside seems to be the fact that you can only use them freely in non-commercial projects. Oh, well, everything seems to have some limits, right? Good to know about this resource, anyway, and I can only hope you agree and will find some good use for Pictoico’s collection.

Chubby Twitters

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:38:50 +0000

When something becomes really popular on the Web, there’s always something good about it, no matter how bad could be the popular thing by itself (think about “two girls one cup” and the videos showing people’s reactions to it, for example). While I can’t say I am in love with Twitter, I have a Twitter account that I use from time to time (that meaning “almost monthly”) and checking out backgrounds and icons for this microblogging service was always something to enjoy.

Considering the above, Chubby Twitters is one those “nice accessories for the beast,” since Twitter doesn’t get more useful thanks to them, but this icons set surely will make your day a bit brighter. As you can see in the image above, we’re talking about 6 Twitter bird icons, and the unseen technical parts go like this: PNG format, available in three resolutions – 64 x 64, 96 x 96, and 128 x 128 pixels.

Designed exclusively for Onetraxpixel by Wong Lexin, this icons set can be downloader from here. I don’t know about you, but I really love them – they are blue, they are fun and, to make everything even more interesting, freely available! What else could you want? Yes, indeed, I would like to see Twitter becoming really useful… but that’s something six funny icons can’t help me with, unfortunately…

Glyph Lab

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:27:12 +0000

I love free icons, but who doesn’t? Unlike other freebies, free icons are usually great, at least that’s what I can say. Unfortunately, others are not always like that – think about freely available articles or wallpapers. Oh, well, you can’t always get what you want, but if it’s icons you need… then glyphlab.com could be one of those excellent online resources that make me wonder “Why do they give so much goodies for free?” over and over again…

So… what’s so special about these guys? Please, allow me to quote the site itself – “We’ve made icons for everyone from small freelance software developers to large multi-national companies – for a diverse range of disciplines and applications.”

Currently, over 600 stock icons are available from Glyph Lab, and the set of 623 icons can be purchased for only $149. A set of 21 icons is available for download right away, so you can preview the goodies you’ll get for the decent amount of money I mentioned above.

Other than stock icons, you can also get custom-made icons for your own needs, but when it comes to the price… it may depend on a lot of factors, but one thing’s sure: Glyph Lab is one icon resource you should always keep in mind. That’s all, folks!

FindIcons

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:53:14 +0000

One of the freelance tasks I always enjoyed to handle is icon creation. Sometimes, it even pays really good, but it’s not about the money, but the fun. On the other hand, if you need icons for some project, the idea is to keep costs as low as possible, and so I ended up on FindIcons.com, an excellent resource for designers looking to get some free icons or entire icon sets…

Using this resource is as easy as 1-2-3 – just open the main page in your favorite browser, type in a keyword, and then click Search and check your results! As I write this, FindIcons has over 300,000 icons and 2,100 icon sets, both number continuously growing, of course. That’s not bad at all, especially if we think about the formats and sizes available (up to 256X256 pixels, usually using the ICO or PNG formats).

To make things even more attractive, FindIcons offers a bunch of filters, allowing you to sort your results by size, color, style or license type, but the cookie on top of the cake is the online converter that allows you to download the icons you need in virtually any popular format, including BMP, GIF, JPG, PSD and so on. Sweet!

These being said, I hope there are only a few minutes remaining until FindIcons will find its way into your bookmarks collection…

Favicon Generator

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:02:19 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I always find reasons to be amazed by notorious websites that miss something. I am not talking about big things, but there are small ones that really make the difference, and today we’re going to talk about favorites icons. Yup, I am talking about that little square icon that’s associated with a certain site and appears in the Address bar of your browser!

Creating icons from scratch isn’t that easy, and usually requires some tools, apart from the skills you should have, but the good news is that Favicon Generator is a free Web-based tool that will turn any image into a favicon faster than your gramma can say “favicon,” and since I said it, let me prove it!

After opening the page where the tool is located, all you need to do is select the source image to use, the size of the icon to create, and then press the Generate button! Once the icon is ready, just right click the Download icon and choose to save the ICO file to your disk. It really wasn’t that hard, don’t you think?

Compatibility: Favicon Generator worked properly for me in Internet Explorer 7/8, Flock, Opera, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome and Maxthon, so it will probably work great in any browser you may think of… as long as you don’t want to use it with some text-based one, like Lynx!