Jun 14, 2009

HOWTO: Find icons for your new prototype system

Author: gaweee | Filed under: development, howto

Having a good UI is 30% of your customer won. No i dont know, 30% was completely arbitrary but absolutely believable. As such, please dont try to make those icons yourself! As all developers know, we try our best not to reinvent the wheel. Unless the wheel sucks and we have the budget, then we knock ourselves out. :D
So its time to share those little icon secrets! Where do you find nice icons!?

  • famfamfam. If you dont know this site, you should be SHOT. Mark James spent good time making a fantastic set of icons so that everyone else could use them. Kudos to him!
  • crystal iconsAnother awesome job done by Everaldo. Download link’s not working. Use this instead. Made primarily for the KDE workspace. Which brings us to my next point
  • Any other Linux icons sources. These includes kde-look, tango, interfacelift, deviantart
  • Iconfinder. Its new, its awesome and apparently they’re license-friendly! If everything’s as promised, they’re gonna kick some serious internet butt! We’re fans already!
  • Ok we admit, sometimes we’re really tempted to use existing packages icons. Joomla has a really nice set. :D

All in all, plenty of icons. And if that doesnt work out. Go buy some from istockphoto and stock.xchng! They’re the pros for a good reason!
And a final word in licensing. Respect it. Not so much for the hard work, but more for the fact that designers can do what we cannot. Even if we tried, we probably wouldn’t have as much flair. Just like magicians.


One Response to “HOWTO: Find icons for your new prototype system”

  1. Martin Leblanc Says:

    Hi

    Thanks for mentioning Iconfinder.

    I run Iconfinder and work hard to make sure licences are not violated. I have been in contact with most of the designers to make sure I have the designer’s permission to put them on Iconfinder.

    Some icon sets have not been put on Iconfinder becasue their licences doesn’t permit redistribution.

    All users on Iconfinder should respect the licenses they find next to each icon (in the info dropdown).

    Best regards,
    Martin Leblanc

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