[Fireside Chat] Icon designers (Part 2 of 3)

[Fireside Chats are round table discussions conducted using Campfire.]

The Chatters
Dave Brasgalla (Icon Factory)
Brian Brasher (Firewheel Design)
Jon Hicks (Hicks Design)
Corey Marion (Icon Factory)
Michael Schmidt (Cuban Council)
Josh Williams (Firewheel Design)
(Moderated by Matt and Jason from 37signals)

Matt	PROCESS: What is your basic method or workflow that you go through to come up with an icon? Tools, approach, etc.
Josh	Years ago, I did most of my icon work in Freehand, copying and pasting the final pieces into Photoshop. I moved to Illustrator about 3 years ago, and have never looked back. I still do some polish work in Photoshop occasionally, but it’s amazing what you can get done in Illustrator completely (secret: Pixel Preview Mode).
Corey	Brainstorm, sketch
Michael	We still do mostly pixel icons, so Photoshop is where it’s at for us – pixel by pixel
Jon	Sketches > Illustrator > Iconbuilder in Photoshop
Brian	All Illustrator. Often, but not always, after sketching.
Corey	yes, we were mostly a Freehand shop as well
Dave	More and more these days, I find myself drawing in a sketchbook.

“More and more these days, I find myself drawing in a sketchbook.”

Josh	I don’t do as much sketching as I used to. Sadly. Unfortunately, there are only so many ways to render "Email"
Brian	Email: a man with an E on his chest.
Brian	And I still use … drumroll … ResEdit!
Jason	ResEdit!!!!!!!!
Josh	Hooray for ResEdit!
Dave	Freehand was wonderful to draw in, but illustrator… not so much
Dave	and that’s been a block for me.
Corey	can’t beat quick pencil sketches to quicky extract ideas form the brain
Jon	I still love using Fireworks, as its pixel/vector tools are lovely
Jason
Josh	Jon: have you ever used Illustrator at all?
Jon	Oh yes
Jon	all the time now
Josh	I nearly got fired from my first job when I used ResEdit to change the Trash Can icon in OS 7.
Josh	I deleted a bunch of system resource stuff on accident.
Brian	I hacked a Mac so bad at my former place of employment it was gruesome.
Dave	Plus, I was working almost entirely in Photoshop the past few years
Jon	What do people use to create the final icon?
Dave	Photoshop and Illustrator
Dave	With all this resolution-independent business, it makes sense to hedge your bets.
Corey	Shameless Plug > IconBuilder
Jon	No shame, Iconbuilder is superb
Jon	Illustrator for everything these days
Michael	Can’t stand illustrator – feels extremely clunky. IconBuilder is terrific, though.
Josh	Since most of our work is for the web now, we export most of our artwork straight from Illustrator with Save For Web
Corey	Illustrator > Photoshop > Iconbuilder
Brian	Dave is correct, AI could benefit greatly from some of FreeHand’s drawing capability, but for creating pixel-precise icons AI is suh-weet.
Josh	Iconbuilder is awesome
Dave	My only problem is 5 years worth of Freehand vector files. :-(
Jon	I have an illustrator file set up to match the Iconbuilder expanded grid, thats how it all gets done
Jon	Scale, then tweak
Jon	usually, a LOT of tweaking
Corey	Pretty serious tweaking
Jon	then for 16px, redrawn
Corey	yep
Jon	I usually do 16px as pixel art almost
Dave	I will say this: I miss the old 32×32 pixel-click days.
Dave	.-D
Matt	Some nitty gritty questions: Do you work zoomed in or zoomed out? When scaling and making several versions of the same icon (64×64, 32×32, 16×16) do you scale down the original and then tweak or start mostly from scratch each time?
Brian	Zoomed in to work, view at 100% periodically (the virtual taking a step back from the canvas).
Josh	I just started using the Mac OS’s (10.4.8+) "zoom" feature a lot—it’s faster than using the Zoom tool in Illustrator at times.
Josh	You can set it up under Universal Access to zoom to say 3x with an easy keystroke
Matt	ah, interesting about the zoom feature
Jon	me too Josh
Jon	very useful
Jon	zoom, with smoothing turned off, of course!
Josh	Jon: of course
Corey	two windows in Illustrator or Photoshop
Corey	one at 100% one zoomed
Brian	I usually build every icon at every size. Resizing often makes a mess.
Dave	Keyline mode is often helpful
Brian	Dave’s using FH terms!
Dave	Heh. Recovering Freehander.
Corey	Ah, Freehand
Jon	Illustrator’s ‘Global Colours’ feature is a big help to me
Jon	then if I get the colours wrong, I can change the whole artwork easily
Josh	Tons of folks seem to think that just because we use vectors a lot that it’s all infinitely scalable. It’s not.

“Tons of folks seem to think that just because we use vectors a lot that it’s all infinitely scalable. It’s not.”

Josh	Lot’s of detail at 128×128 generally looks like crap at 16×16
Dave	That’s true, Josh, but I am interested in how the new icons will work in leopard
Josh	Vectors are nice, but generally you have to do clean up at the individual sizes, especially the tiny ones.
Jason	So, let’s change gears here a bit…
Jason	I’m curious what you guys think about icon piracy?
Jon	Arrr!
Josh	It happens.
Jason	What goes through your mind when you see someone clearly lift one of your icons without permission
Brian	Hang the pirates!
Corey	All we can do is keep our eyes open
Dave	I visit my not-inconsiderable wrath upon them.
Corey	We get quite a few emails alerting us about it
Michael	I’m sure it’s different when you’re doing app icons, but for web icons it’s pretty much inevitable
Corey	we send a quick note and it is usually resolved quickly
Brian	I stick pins in dolls which I hope look like them.
Michael	I mean, how many different ways can you do an email icon in 12×12?
Josh	It’s so easy to lift a small piece of artwork and reuse it elsewhere. In the end, it’s like anything digital though—they’re just easy to steal. You just kinda have to chalk that up to life.
Dave	I’ve always tried to use distinctive angles and styles, so there will at least be no doubt
Corey	we often got the "we hired a designer to do it" excuse
Jon	that goes for site designs too
Josh	Corey: I’ve heard that a million times
Jon	its the common get out clause
Josh	I think developing a style, like Dave says, is definitely helpful.
Josh	They’ll still get stolen, but it’ll be obvious

“I think developing a style is definitely helpful. They’ll still get stolen, but it’ll be obvious”

Jason	Does the size of the work really have anything to do with it?
Jason	It’s still taking your work without your permission.
Michael	Jason: Not, not really – just saying the line is a bit more blurry when you get down into the tiny sizes
Josh	Jason: I think the size does play a bit of an issue. It’s easier to clean up "red lines" from a lifted stock icon preview than say a detailed watermark from a photograph at Veer.
Jason	JW: Totally. And active piracy like that really bothers me. Someone taking the time to remove the proof. They obviously know it’s wrong then.
Dave	Over the years, we’ve become fairly conversant in legalese, so I just send them the form!
Corey	We have had our Factory show up on websites
Dave	There’s a helluva lot more people in the icon dodge these days than there used to be, too
Brian	Maybe we can get the RIAA involved here!
Jason	icon.drm
Jon	Its a shame, becuase watermarks can really ruin previews: http://www.mezzoblue.com/icons/chalkwork/
Josh	Just say no to icon DRM.
Jason	Better make those icons in AAC format!
Dave	everyday life!
Corey	yeah, that hurts my eyes
Josh	Yeah, I’ve seen the Mezzoblue icons without watermark, and they look really nice.
Corey	but it has to be done
Jason	Do you think the red lines/dots actively prevent piracy?
Jon	Jason: I think they help
Jon	it will put off the lazy ones
Josh	Not really. It’s a deterrent, but people can use stolen credit cards or lifted PayPal accounts to buy stuff too.
Michael	I think so too – it’s not just cut & paste to use the icons, you actually have to work at it to use them
Dave	You can’t keep people from burglarizing you, but you can at least lock your door.
Jason	Do you think you’d see an avalanche of piracy without the watermarks?
Jason	Josh: If not, why have them on your site? Has anyone considered just "lifting the watermark-style-drm" and seeing what happens?
Brian	Yes, without watermarks the lazy reign supreme.
Josh	JF: Yeah, probably. But the people who are going to steal them will figure out a way.
Michael	Exactly
Dave	I have to say that 15 years of the Internet has done little to bolster my faith in humanity. .-D

“15 years of the Internet has done little to bolster my faith in humanity.”

Josh	I think the watermarks are kinda your final way of saying, "Hey, we spent a lot of time on these… please don’t just take them."
Matt	What are your sources of inspiration?
Jon	Inspiration = Iconfactory
Michael	Iconfactory is the all-time no. 1 source of inspiration for us
Brian	Dave inspires me. And makes me green with envy.
Dave	Same here :-D
Corey	Thanks guys
Michael	They are the icon OG’s
Josh	Yeah, I think we all got into this in one way or another because of Iconfactory.

“We all got into this in one way or another because of Iconfactory.”

Corey	I have always loved Brian’s style
Dave	Brian remains an original – no one else like him
Josh	I’m inspired a lot by traditional and industrial artists
Matt	Related: What are your favorite non-digital icons (historical icons)?
Brian	Orthodox church.
Brian	I kid.
Corey	Josh’s Winter Games set rocks
Josh
Josh	I’m a big fan of Marcel Mouly and his paintings.
Josh	(larger version)
Josh	I’m driven by contrast and color
Josh	Color and contrast doesn’t always make for the most usable icons, but they are pretty
Jon	I love the power icon
Matt
Jon	it doesn’t say ‘power’ to me at all
Jon	but somehow its become entrenched as having that meaning.
Brian	I’m not certain I know what’s meant by "historical icons".
Dave	Computer history?
Matt	icons that aren’t on computers, like maybe a road sign symbol or olympics icons.
Jon	I think it means things like the icon for Gents/Ladies loos
Corey	Architecture is always a source of inspiration for me
Brian	The original Beetles had nice icons!
Brian	Inside, I mean.
Corey	Frank Lloyd Wright, very "graphic"
Brian	The compact, but fraught with meaning 1940’s and 50’s spot illustrations.
Dave	Yes, agree, Brian.
Dave	Hard to say… I love old signage.
Dave	Stockholm is great for amazing old neon signs
Brian	German graphic arts before the nazis wrecked everything.
Josh	I’m also a big Frank Gehry fan… don’t know how that impacts my icons, but he always finds a level of beauty in practicality
Josh	(larger version)

Part 1 and Part 3.

Matt Linderman wrote this on Apr 23 2007 There are 5 comments.

Michael Buckbee

on 23 Apr 07

Historical icons are ones with a cultural inertia behind them even though their immediate design is rapidly losing relevance.

I think the greatest example of this today is the ubiquitous floppy disk drive as “Save” icon.

Floppies are dead, but to date no one has come up with a more identifiable image to represent that function.

Steven Ansell

I must say I simply love the trash icon from Mac OS 9. It looks just like the kind I grew up with.

Also, I am very surprised that y’all use Freehand!!! :-s illustrator is just so nice.

I look forward to part III!!!

Christian Watson

I’d love to know your opinions on the use of icons on web sites, primarily navigation icons.

Personally, I think their value is questionable (and wrote about it on my site).

However, it would be interesting to hear what people who actually design icons for a living have to say on this issue.

josh

I don’t think the cursor itself gets enough love as an icon.

liya

How did you guys become icon designers? And what training did you have that helps you be a good icon designer?

I’m curious because your profession is so specialized that in most companies, people like me (interaction designers) end up trying to do your job as well, and of course we suck big time compared to you.

Impart your wisdom with us icon designers!