Icon Johnny

When designing a web site or an application’s interface, one of the hardest tasks is designing the icons. The overall look and feel of an interface often hinges on the quality of the icons used. In most situations creating a professional looking interface requires the use of professionally designed icons.

The two main types of professionally designed icons currently available are stock icons and custom designed icons. The following information should prove useful when choosing which type of icon to use.

Stock icons are collections of generic icons that are designed to cover the most common functions that an application or web site might require (for example loading, saving, printing or searching). They are widely available on the web and can be downloaded directly from icon seller sites. Some stock icon packs are entirely free but these tend to include only a single size of each icon and often have restrictive license agreements.

Strengths

Inexpensive – Stock icons are comparatively cheap or even free.

Quick – Stock icons can be downloaded and incorporated within an application or website within minutes.

Choice – There are a large number of websites dedicated to stock icons and these provide a huge variety of icon sets that can be selected for download.

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Weaknesses

Not unique – Stock icons are available for anyone to purchase so there will be other applications and websites around utilising the exact same icons.

Not specific – In some cases a very specific function needs to be represented that may not be covered in a generic stock icon set.

No branding – Stock icons will not incorporate any kind of branding that could be required in some instances

Not audience specific – Different audiences will comprehend icons in different ways, stock icons are generic and therefore not tailored to any specific audience.

Custom icons are designed from scratch to fit a client’s specific requirements. The design process used to create custom icons varies but generally the following steps are involved:

Research – Finding out about the client’s requirements and deciding on what concepts and metaphors are to be used.

Sketching concepts – Using pencil and paper to sketch a number of concept designs.

Optimising concepts – After choosing the best concept sketches, these are optimised to produce the final designs.

Render final design – The optimised concept is rendered, either as a vector or a bitmap, depending on the users requirements and the designer’s preference.

Strengths

Uniqueness – Custom icons are designed and created for a single client and will therefore be unique to their website or application.

Client input – The design process used to create a custom icon allows a client to have input into the design of an icon, ensuring it meets their specific needs as optimally as possible.

Branding – Custom designed icons can be created to fit within a visual identity and incorporate branding.

Audience tailoring – The icon’s audience can be taken into account when designing a custom icon.

Weaknesses

Expensive – Custom designed icons are more expensive than stock icons.

Slow – As the icons have to be created from scratch time is required for the design process to be completed.

In situations where a stock icon set is adequate for all but a couple of functions it can be most efficient to use this stock icon set and have the remaining icons custom designed. Often companies that sell stock icons also provide a custom design service. If a stock icon set is to be used in conjunction with custom icons then it is preferable to purchase them both from the same company to ensure that the visual identity of the stock and custom icons match.

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