Creative 3D Icon Set - PNG - Download-attached zip

Icons are the signs and sentinels that guide visitors through the digital world. Computer users have become accustomed to clicking on a miniature disk to save, a tiny printer to print or an open manila folder to open a document. All symbols logically relate to their function making it simple for users to navigate. If a picture is worth a thousand words, than an icon must be worth a million — clicks.

Icon design software allows you to create icons for almost anything whether for your own computer system, a new program or a website. Following are some tips and tricks to implement when designing icons for your next project.

• Sketch your design ideas on paper before diving into the software.
• Use fonts, such as Symbol and Windings, and text to quickly represent different ideas (people, machines, houses, symbols etc.).
• Make sure your graphic logically relates to its function.
• Create icons that are large enough to visualize and comprehend.
• Consider your target audience when creating. Users of your software or visitors of your website should be able to navigate easily through the icons.
• Develop a common stylistic thread throughout your icons in order to minimize visual distractions and allow the user to quickly learn and recognize the attributes of the icons.
• Rely on a strong metaphor that will be understood by the widest audience for your icon images. A dictionary will give you all possible meanings of a word describing your chosen image.
• When illustrating XP–style icons, add an outline to the image to provide definition and ensure that the image works well on different background colors.
• Avoid using more than three objects in an icon for better recognition.
• Consider the cultural effect of your graphics. Some letters, words, hand gestures and images of people may not translate well.
• Increase visibility of XP icons by adding a smooth shadow behind the image.
• Refresh your icon cache if your desktop items in Windows XP are not displaying the right icons or no icons at all. Do this by going to Start/Run and enter Regedit to launch the Registry Editor.
• Successful shading can be achieved in a 16 color VGA environment by carefully placing colors of similar brightness and hue adjacent to each other.