Monday, February 28, 2011

2d Web Icons And Models Information

2D icons are actually well known for their flexibility. This versatility is achieved by rendering them at various resolutions suitable for various output devices.

2D Icons items:

  • raster pictures (digital graphics);
  • styled text as a typeset for 2D Icons;
  • vector models (geometric graphics).

All these items can be managed by 2D transformations such as rotation, scaling or angular position etc. Meshing basic models you will get more advanced ones.

2D web icons aren't like the real three-dimensional objects but as a result of layers technique they are able to create the illusion of all 3D characteristics like shadow, reflection or highlighting. The layers really should maintain the certain hierarchy and order carefully. This makes modifying 2D icons and related objects easier.

2.5D Icons as the pseudo 3D kind of 2D Icons

The layered 2Dicons are usually known as 2.5D models. This technology allows web designers to work with any layer without the need of touching the others. This type of 2D object creation is preferred by the most of the famous graphics editors.

2.5D is a synonym to pseudo 3D and is interpreted as "two-and-a-half-dimensional" graphics. Models created with 2.5D technology appear to be tridimensional while in fact they're not.

This technology used for designing 2D icons is often attained by the special lighting effect. 3D illusion can be reached as a result of virtual light source to the left or to the right side and above the users monitor.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Find Out All Advantages Of Realistic Icons.

Realistic web icons are essential elements of the modern pieces of software program, applications and add-ons.

As far as you know online websites require special methods for representation and promotion. One example of these methods is including realistic icons into your web design. Certainly icons will help users of your web site to get a quick initial impression of your web business as well as products that you offer. If you need to make icons noticeable - place them on the website's home page.

You may hire the skilled designer to create some unique set of icons meeting your internet site personal needs and products. But such custom orders of realistic icons are very expensive and take significant period of time. The custom order result still remains indefinite Even professional web site designers fall short of the mark known as non-uniqueness. To avoid wasting time and smoothen things down they take icons designed earlier and simply play with the colors and shades, use some other effects and sell realistic icons as exclusive items. Though in fact they are not.

Another source of getting attractive web icons is finding authoritative icons resources. You can simply find a great amount of various Realistic web icons stocks and providers over the internet. The great benefit of this method of getting web icons is that you see what you buy. The price may be lower than in case with custom orders. Furthermore, you save much valuable time. So as far as you see now - stocks are much more preferable for finding properly designed and low-priced realistic icons . All these benefits make icon stocks the great deal.

Realistic Icons Tips

Designing realistic icons you have to build the basic pictograms first. It should look vivid enough if being displayed at worse resolution, resized, discolored or blurred. The icon should be recognizable at first sight. How to check your icons? If it's possible to discern the icon within less than a second - it is well done.<\p>

The next step is to make realistic icons more eye-catching by adding decorative elements. Really don't overload icons with the details and color tints. Design should look integral and reserved. You can also make the edges anti-aliased. The decoration should not detract from the icons essence and functions.

Vector format in which the icons are stored makes them pretty simple to edit. You are free to resize, rotate, adjust the edges and edit outlines, change the color scheme and add more details etc. So you needn't be an experienced designer or an artist to use them.

Realistic icons may be helpful in case you need to design the interface layout of the new software program or IT services. But remember if you wish to generate good quality and eye-catching realistic icons you should be patient because it is not easy. Generally you need to modify the high-resolution pictures in order to get truly realistic images.

Vintage Icons Style

Retro takes over the modern web site design industry. For sure the best representatives of classic beauty and noble taste are Vintage web icons. Modern day web site style receives some vintage twist. Retro and Vintage are becoming the popular trends in the modern day digital art. Vintage web icons, textures, patterns as well as clip-art bring mystery to your design. They make you plunge into the atmosphere of the old good times, when everything appeared to be so simple, innocent and noble. People always associate childhood or youth with happy times. Therefore vintage style revives due to this psychological peculiarity of the human nature.

Find out all about retro style in the present day web design industry

In present day art retro becomes some conscious norm. Having emerged in the post-modern art, it penetrates into the contemporary web site design in the form of vintage icons, old-style backgrounds, aged photography etc. No doubt it gives some zest to the feel and look of the ordinary sites.

Typically the new retro style includes the Web 2.0 look with a vintage twist. It requires to mix the present day clean blocks and the outdated ones. Also there's a necessity to combine aged design elements like Vintage web icons, styles and color palettes.

Find All Info About Realistic Icons

Realism traces back to the 1850s when this movement unfolded in French art. Over the years it came through all types of art and design. Realism in internet site design is successfully represented by Realistic web icons.

Realistic icons background

Friday, February 25, 2011

Line Icons Design - Various Techniques

The objects with the outlined contours is another kind of Line icons. Such design elements are called contour drawings. Also you can find another kind of icons: the items are without some strict outlines. They are called gesture drawings. Skilled designers usually use such type of drawings because they're able to repeat the outlines of the object right after seeing it. It's not a complete piece of art but rather a sketch which usually demands 20-30 seconds to be drawn.

One more technique is adding some halftones and shades to the object by using short lines and crosshatching. Please don't afraid to alter their frequency as well as pencil pressure. This variety creates more three-dimensional look to the object. This particular trick is widely used in world wide web design as well. It helps to develop great Line web icons, logos and buttons.The lines with the dots not combining the singular elements are known as open lines. The lines can be gesture-like, parallel, contour etc. as well. Contour drawing consists of fantastic simplicity and refinement of line design. You may be want to know what's bezier curves in computer graphics? It is such sort of the curves that are important for creating complex line shapes. These curves are handy small features essential for developing the vector shapes like line icons, unusual buttons etc.Computer technologies have the ability to reproduce the same designs or develop new shapes based on some older ones without extra efforts and time. Another advantage is that it is simple to go back to the previous adjustments with a help of the history panel. So you do not have to design Line icons from scratch after you've made some errors.

Everything You Want To Know About Simple Icons

Simple icons are among the principal features of minimalistic design. In addition, simple icons as well as other design elements should be used moderately. Reduce the amount of simple icons. Use them only where it is essential. Refrain the optional simple web icons.

Limited amount of color, reserved shades, clear elements, soft lighting are being used for simple web icons design. Simple web icons are produced out of elegant and simple elements which do not distract internet site visitors from the main navigation and website idea.

Rules for simple icons design:

  • minimal usage of duplication
  • less amount of graphical elements
  • maximum intuitive clarity
  • clear typography in simple web icons
  • less icons

How to create minimalistic design with simple web icons

Do not forget about lightweight background textures and patterns. They're also essential for the design and content perception as well as simple icons. The eyes should focus on the webpage content or some essential blocks but not on the background pattern or image itself. Developing the background use a light simple shade. This makes it secondary compared with the foreground items like simple web icons.

Clear typography is an additional prominent feature of the lightweight and clear design. Select simple icons names based on their function and keep in mind that such names ought to be precise, as well as meaningful. Headings placed on simple web icons need to be of readable font and large enough for easy reading.

Enough white or empty space is helpful for creating a wonderful clean simple icons design. Extra spaces keep elements individual and for that reason much more readable and easier to work with. Some extra space between simple web icons will do your design no harm at all.

In general the minimalistic trend is not entirely minimal. Nevertheless the dominance of white space there are still some simple icons, light textures, neat styles and bold fonts. Don't forget that minimal is not exactly the same as simple. From the very begining minimal meant plain typographic excluding images and styling. Today there is a great number of various websites over the Internet. That's why modern design requires something more than black text on white background. Reducing elements of design to the most essential items you can add much more zest to your web page layout with some unusual coloring, catchy simple icons, half-transparent and lightweight textures and patterns.

Simple is often used as a synonym of smart. Simple web icons look great and professional especially for a clean business style design.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Simple Icons As Smart Features Of Minimalistic Web Page Design

Simple icons are produced not to make the design delightful but instead minimal and fashionable. Light-weight Simple icons are meant to be made to increase website user interaction.

Minimalistic web site design as a prevalent trend

Minimalistic design means simplicity and light-weight elements such as Simple icons. This type of icons does not have complex wordings, figures, textures and patterns. Less even implies more in some areas and to some extent. Web site design is just such area.

Today minimalistic webpage design is something unusual. High modern day technologies frequently lead to the loss of simplicity. Blending minimalistic website design with CSS3 and HTML5 is becoming more popular and makes you believe that combining simple elegance and usability is the formula for your internet site success. Simple does not always mean primitive. Internet site which uses simple design often has off-color effects and also actively use CSS and Ajax.

Among essential features of the present day simple web site design are the following:

  • grid based design;
  • simple icons;
  • light shading and reserved color transition;
  • light texture of patterns and backgrounds (often transparent like);
  • more empty or white space;
  • simple shapes and figures, clear lines;
  • less amount of various bright colors;
  • readable and clear typography;

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

2d Icons Facts

2D icons is a wide spread trend in the web site design of nowadays. Being two-dimensional, they are well known for their flexibility and comparative simplicity. 2.5D Icons is the type of 2D Icons that is closer to pseudo 3D representation.

2D computer graphics was initially based on vector graphics devices. Nowadays2D icons are one of the most important two-dimensional digital design items.

What's actually 2D?It is being associated usually with computer graphics and determined as the two-dimensional way of digital images generation. Two-dimensional models mostly are 2D geometric ones, digital images and texts. The term 2D comprises not only the models themselves but the techniques and tricks specific to them at the same time.

2D icons and objects don't simply represent the real world items but are independent objects with their own semantic value. 2D graphics means that we can get much more direct control of the image than 3D technology. This one of the reasons why they're so preferred in the world of contemporary website design. 3D graphics is more effective realized in animation or photography than typography and sometimes even website design.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Vintage Icons As The Initial Step To The Vintage Web Design

Vintage web icons is among the most noticeable and easy-to-apply graphical elements you may use in your website to make it look archaic. Vintage web icons suppose authentic use of vintage typography, less-saturated colors and retro textures to help creating the vintage air emanating from the internet site. Your website visitors will definitely like antique air of your new design.

Retro trend is all about the styles of the70s and 80s. Retro advertising art from the 1950s is bold and eye-catching. Computer technologies help to put a new face on this type of art using its characters in website design and printing. These faces outlined in the vintage web icons are more often retro cars, pin-up girls, soldiers and politicians of the former times.Undoubtedly among the most often used retro cars are Fiat 500, the 1970 Dodge Challenger, the 1969 Chevrolet Samara, the 1964 Ford Mustang etc. You can effortlessly find Vintage web icons that include hints to retro cars concepts. This will help to attract more attention to your webpage layout. They are perfect for the sites concerning auto sales, transporting services, tour sites etc.A pin-up model is another popular character used in vintage icons design and other website graphics styling. Usually it presents images of how the really sexy and beautiful woman should look like. If you're an owner of the web site regarding health and beauty areas or the model agencies - keep in mind that you can use pin-up images that are great for vintage web icon.

In case you have a web-site that is connected with military and security guard you may effectively use images of soldiers and officers with outdated appearance to attract much more interest and win the visitors trust.

Usage of specific characters is not limited to the above-mentioned ones. You may apply creativity and use them unconventionally. This will help to make people surprise and thus remember your website.

Vintage Icons Patterns and Typography

Recommended Vintage patterns in vintage icons design:

  • patterns containing vintage papers;
  • with vintage frames;
  • with outmoded florals;
  • paper and bagging, gold-cloth as the texture fabric;
  • wooden or bronze textures for vintage icons.

For producing vintage icons titles, content headings and texts you can use such authentic fonts as Matchbook, Bazar Medium, Embossed, Hill House,-Fontleroy Brown, Fusty Saddle, Just Old Fashion, Goudy Bookletter 1911, Rocket Script, Parisian, Star Avenue etc. You are free to find and purchase the fonts to match your design on the internet.

Try to get a such vintage-inspired design that looks fashionable and suitable, but no old-fashioned. If you create the warm and noble, antique feel with a help of Vintage icons, images and styled blocks for the webpage layout, your visitors will come to your site with a thankful smile over and over again. They will feel comfortable and cozy at your site.

But try not to make your vintage design look too stuffy, you need to be aware that professional design is formal-looking and the major emphasis should be made on the products, services or content material your site presents.

Line Icons

Lines are more frequently used for outlining the contours of objects and emphasizing edges. If placed and designed reasonably, line icons can be the best decoration of any minimalistic or clear web page design.

Lines and their features in line icons design.

Let us find out what line actually is. The shortest definition is the following: line is a form that contain both width and length but eliminating depth. We are accustomed to the fact that the line is usually straight. Newertheless the line is more often curved. Staying static shapes, Line web icons can create a kind of illusion of the dynamic objects. The mood depends on the lines direction. Horizontal lines in Line icons embody calmness, harmony and also stability while the vertical ones strive for the light movement. The diagonal lines reveal energy along with stronger dynamic feeling. If you'd like to develop refine and modern line icons designs you should use mix of straight lines and curves.

Line art background

Curve stitching may be the first kind of line art known to the artists. Such sort of line art was developed with a help of threads of different colors and needle. Initially the canvas was a card board. String Art is another name for this particular movement. Originally it was found out by Mary Boole as the accessory material for kids to help them study geometry of angles and spaces. Line art existed also like illustrations for print sources before the photography was invented. At that time line art included only black and white colours. A few shades of gray were also acceptable and imitated.Line art includes geometry and art and in such a way becomes appealing to both technical and creative sides of human nature, If you want to become a Line icons designer remember that this process may develop imagination and creativity as well as calculation skills.Line art differs from photography or multi-color painting by its ability to be printed to the halftone pic with no extra conversion. This kind of art is named line drawing and line copy too.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Creating 3D Web Icons

The thoroughness and truthfulness of the picture may be even the drawback 3D web icons possess. It means you're more free to use artistic vision while drawing some object. As an example, if we take a cell-phone, you'll be able to draw it rather similar to what we associate with its name but eliminate additional details, shades and highlights. However, your consciousness discerns it as a phone effortlessly. In some cases schematic drawings work even better than 3D models. You should analyze each definite case. To develop an object and make it seem closer to real one 3d icons must repeat thoroughly each detail and line. So to answer the question we can say it's more like a kind of technical representation than a piece of art. Though some illustrators manage to develop abstract 3D icons that involve creative thought and look like true works of art. Today accurate and realistic modeling is anyway the most used trend of 3D design.If you are planning to use some characters as icons, 3D icons are going to appear more realistic than 2D ones. The characters may remain cartoonish and this will give zest to your site.

The technical issues you may face while using 3D icons in your project layout.

So focus on these useful facts while creating the icons design for your site:

It is not possible to display all the beauty and details of 3d icons with bad resolution of the viewers displays;

since the monitor screen is 2D device it will not show the true three-dimensional object as we see it in reality;

3D space is harder to be manipulated and controlled in comparison with 2D one;

the non-standard applications important for correct viewing of 3D web Icons may force the user to download and install extra software which is certainly not convenient.

As far as you can see both kinds of graphical representation are based on geometric data but 3D objects are actually the sculpture models, more complicated items. Also 3D web Icons requirements are much severer. 3D web icons may lack creativity and abstract air but the facts of depth and volume which are successfully created with 3D technology are incontestable.

Business Web Icons Useful Tips And Information

Remember the easiest method to success -it is simplicity. Simple business icons, clear typography and enough air (white spaces) are indicators of serious potential, safety and stability of your company. The most traditional colours for designing business icons are black, white, gray and blue. Verdana is the greatest readable font ever, so it's highly recommended for use in the wordings for business icons if there are any. Black text on white business icons - classic is usually up to date. The content blocks are to be of light, close to white colours. As far as you have already known business icons style needs minimalism. Do not develop a great amount of multi-color icons, flashy objects, logos and graphics. In such a way you risk to produce the site messy.

One-of-a-kind business icons is the right choice

The new web pages which are not so reputed yet require professional look to make the Internet surfers notice them. The most widespread web site design style used by the artists all over the world is web 2.0 style. The web 2.0 logos and business web icons look fresh and clean. Exclusive logo is anyway the face of your company represented on the net. So it's importance should be taken into consideration.

Cool content used in the modern design is efficient. But unique design is what really makes your business internet site unique. Elegance of its unique business icons and logo, simplicity of the content layout and clear arrangement of buttons and blocks promote the website not worse than optimized and reasoned out content.Copying and stealing ideas of other companies trade logos or corporate styles is harmful for your web page reputation. Unique logos and business icons should be easily recognizable and carry a pure idea of what's actually being offered by your company.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Tips To Develop Professional Site Layout With Business Icons

How to choose a proper design for your webpage? It is a very hard task. You need to design the header graphics and logo, business icons and content placeholders as well as find the fonts according to the business area and desires of your potential customers.

The successful site ought to include your potential customers expectations. For this purpose use the proper business icons, buttons and styles for content blocks.

The first step as the first brick is definitely crucial. At the very begining you should decide what's the main audience of your internet site. After this think about what do your potential customers expect. Starting with the results of this research you should choose the appropriate name, hosting provider, content material and design style. Initially you are to correlate the planned color scheme and layout together with your potential customers expectations. You should feel what colors and styles of business icons and other elements of design reflect the business area your company presents.

To make the right choice you should take into account that various colors evoke certain emotions in various groups of people. As an example if you are going to create the internet site for some nightclub, it is more effective to use business icons of bright disco colors and nonstandard forms. Some tints of red as manifestation of passion and sex are pertinent for business icons, logos or buttons in such a case. If you're building the website for some consulting company its look and feel is supposed to be clear, calm and reserved. Also avoid playful lines and even light-minded graphics. So build a web-site using cool colors and simple recognizable shapes of business icons. As a result you'll get a web page that show professionalism and stability of your company to your potential clients.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Glass Web Icons

Web icons bring clean look to your internet site making its design attractive and more professional. Though this effect should be reasonably used since it can be harmful for the design perception.

Glass web iconsare incredibly popular and attractive elements of web site or blog decor. This glass icon style imparts the perfect, clear and professional look to your webpage, presentation or desktop and embodies a kind of the "Web 2.0" spirit.

Glass icons usage pro and contra.

Do the elaborate and intricate look of the web icons designed in the glass style turn your brain and you think that it is a hard task to do this? Do not be confused - it is obvious that the process of their creation is rather simple. Glass icons can normally be designed within a few minutes with Photoshop, Illustrator or Corel software program, so it's not a big problem even for the newbies in the design sphere. So you do not need to have extra website design knowledges. Everything you need is some helpful tutorial, some skills of working with these pieces of software and the images you are going to turn into glass web icons.

The glass effect with all its glass buttons, tabs and rollovers is considered to have beenborrowed from the Apples OSX operating-system style and copied by Windows (especially Windows Vista). Obviously you may argue that Glass icons are so strongly associated with Apple product that the glass-styled elements make people think of the entirely different brand which makes the usage if this type of web icons meaningless, but you cannot deny the fact that the glass icons style has numerous benefits .

Social bookmarking web icons is an important feature of the modern web-site. If you'd like to have a great advantage for the internet site promotion use eye-catching glossy icons for this purpose. This fact is easily explained: attractive social bookmarks raise the probability of the visitors clicking on them and the number of the clicks increases correspondingly. So due to this fact you'll be able to promote your content more effectively.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Web Icon With Glass Effect.

Glass icons can be viewed as an independent icon style though it is logical to assume that glass style is just one of the types of the shiny, glossy design.

The examples below - other types of the glossy web icons design can be marked out:

  • glass icons;
  • metal icons;
  • glass-metal icons;
  • transparent icons.

Transparent and half-transparent glossy icons can be aqua, crystal, plastic etc.

Glass web icons are frequently depicted with reflecting. It is one of the standard features of the "Web 2.0" icons. Creation of vertical reflection effect for web icons is really simple furthermore you can find a great amount of tutorials on the net teaching how to do this.

It is the effect when icons are like images placed on a shiny, reflecting surface or tower above the water surface.

The pure look of glass icons makes navigating through the internet pages playful and attracts lots of people. In the Internet sources you can definitely find a huge selection of tutorials concerning the ways of creating such neat web icons.

Tips for simple and fast creation of glass web icons.

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular software for creating web icons. Photoshop is becoming more and more flexible and multitasking software for design. Originally it was rather an image editor and nowadays it enables to create almost all visual effects used for the graphic design. A great amount of the prominent web designers and illustrators create their great web icons designs with this software. The main feature of the latest Photoshop versions is the ability to combine pixel painting with vector tool for creating glass icons, buttons, characters etc.<\p>

The easiest way to design Glass web icons is to make the "glass" layer overlap the image. With a help of the "eraser" tool it is possible to build an empty diagonal line through the image. You are supposed to proceed using eraser for making adjustments to the glass layer until the moment when the glass effect repeats the contour of the icon. It should kind of the glass haze in the opposite sides. After this procedure complete the further adjustments should be applied.

Professional site designers should use this effect carefully and be aware that glass-fever may look ridiculous . Glass icons really should be combined with taste so that the web-site style could remain professional and reserved.

Monday, January 10, 2011

2D Icons and 3D Icons Important information

Basic differences between 2D and 3D icons design

Speaking about 3d Icons we need to point out that the source of light plays an extremely important role for creating authentic three-dimensional images. Undoubtedly the using several light sources in website design today is more effective but take into account that they should follow fundamental rules of physics and be truthful. A few lights usually make 3D web icons look softer and more realistic.

Both 2D and 3D icons represent the volume found in the three-dimensional world but use various means of creating this illusion. Definitely the volume can be displayed by 3D Icons to more extent than 2D Icons. More often the images are flat and present just one perspective. Detailed highlights and imperceptible soft shadows are missing as a rule. The shades usage is restricted as well.

3D icons can be proud of all these features instead. Nevertheless dont forget that 3D is nothing but mathematical replication of the data that unfortunately restricts its usage. In some cases you can easily replace 3D Icons by 2D ones or by the videos with the sounds - but all this depends on situation. The sounds give additional dimensionality to the videos that actually use 2D images.Software used for 3D modeling enables to create that 3D dimension. Don't forget that 3D icons should be depicted in correlation with the other objects and the environment they're placed into.