Icons: How does a developer with no design skill make his/her application icons look pretty? [closed]

Answer 1

I try to keep my applications very simple. Simplicity and usability can be a good design in-and-of itself if done intelligently.

Take all of the buttons for Stackoverflow for example. It shouldn't be very difficult to implement something similar in your own application. They are simple and they get the job done.

Answer 2

But why on earth do you think you need to make icons to make your interfaces look good? Icon driven interfaces are the bane of UI these days. Look at a screenshot of Komodo IDE or Eclipse for example. These are horrendously badly designed interfaces. It's impossible to tell what the buttons do until you hover over them and get the tooltip. I suggest you use text unless there is an icon that better represents the concept, not feel you need to represent every idea visually.

I guess it depends what context you're developing UI for - have you a lot of users who don't speak English as their first language? Is it for occasional use or for power users to use every day? Is it a web site? Is it a desktop application?

But when you really need icons, there are some good libraries out there. I think consistency is really important; Tango for instance "exists to help create a consistent graphical user interface experience for free and Open Source software." and the rather attractive icons are licensed under Creative Commons

Answer 3

Try this site www.iconsreview.com, they offer reviews for a variety of icon packages, both free and for purchase.

Answer 4

We have an in-house designer that does ours, although we also use freelance designers, too.

You could try starting a design competition on 99 Designs?

There are also some free icon sets available, like these.

If you google around, you'll also find quite a few commercially available icon sets that you can use (although obviously neither of the icon set options will get you an icon specific to your app!).

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

www.iconshock.com has over 400,000 icons and you can buy the entire collection for around $400.

Alternatively there are a number of sites offering free icons, just be sure to check the licence.

Answer 6

You don't have to be a great designer to come out with a decent UI and a great user experience for your application.

I think there are certain principles you can follow that can dramatically improve your application.

At a high level this includes:

• Identifying your top 3 use cases
• Measuring and reducing the number of clicks it takes to get through the top use cases
• Sketch, Prototype, Throw it away, and challenge yourself to do it with less

I've written a blog entry that attempts to write out some principles related to GUI design. Check it out and let me know what you think.

How to improve the User Experience of your GUI application with some simple principles.