Thursday, February 24, 2011

Methods Of Creation Of Line Icons

The objects with the outlined contours is the one other kind of Line icons. Such design elements are known as contour drawings. There are items without some strict outlines which can be rather some hint than actual contour of line icons. They're called gesture drawings. Such drawings are being widely used by experienced artists who can repeat the outlines of the object right after seeing it.

One more technique is adding some halftones and shades to the object. It's possible by using short lines and crosshatching. Dont afraid to vary their frequency and also pencil pressure. And this variety impart more three-dimensional look to the object. This particular trick is widely used in world wide web design as well. So this method is definitely helping in designing of great Line icons, logos and buttons.Also lets get information about open lines. It is such type of the lines where the dots not combining the singular elements. It may look very striking when being applied to line icons design. The lines can be gesture-like, parallel, contour etc. as well. Contour drawing includes great simplicity and refinement of line design. The curves that are important for creating complex line shapes are called Bezier curves in computer graphics. These curves are real helpers in creation of the vector shapes such as line icons, different buttons etc. Computer technologies have the ability to reproduce the same designs or build new shapes based on some older ones without extra efforts and time. Another advantage is that you can easily go back to the previous adjustments with a help of the history panel. So you don't have to design Line web icons from scratch after you have made some mistakes.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Simple Icons And Minimalistic Website Design

Simple icons are created to join forces of minimalism and modern trend. Light-weight Simple web icons are supposed to be built to improve web-site user interaction.

Minimalism in web site design

Lets find out what minimalistic web site design indicates. Definitely the first characteristics are simplicity and lightweight elements. Simple web icons involve all of this. This type of icons does not have complex wordings, figures, textures and patterns. Less even indicates more in some areas and to some extent. Internet site design is just that area.

Minimalistic design is quite an unexpected trend at present. As far as you know high present day technologies have one great weakness - usually they resulted in the loss of simplicity. Today the contemporary trend is to combine minimalistic web design with CSS3 and HTML5. Website which uses simple design often has off-color effects and also actively use CSS and Ajax.

The most significant features of the modern simple web site design:

  • 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;

Simple Web Icons Features

Simple web icons are among the principal features of minimalistic design. Do not forget that simple icons along with other design elements should be used moderately. One of the tips is minimizing icons use in general. Reduce the amount of simple icons. Use them only where it is essential. Optional simple web icons are to be refrained from repetition or eluded. They may serve multiple functions.

Limited amount of color, reserved tones, clear elements, soft lighting are being used for simple web icons design. One of the greatest advantages of Simple web icons is that they don't distract website visitors from the main idea of your site.

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

Some important ideas for developing a minimalistic design with simple web icons

Don't forget about lightweight background textures and patterns. They're also important for the design and content perception as well as simple icons. The background pattern or images should not grab all the attention of your visitors. The eyes should focus on the website content or some main blocks. Building the background use a light simple shade. This makes it secondary compared with the foreground items like simple web icons.

Clear typography is another prominent feature of the lightweight and clear design. Pick simple icons names according to their function and remember that such names ought to be precise, and also meaningful. Headings placed on simple web icons need to be of readable font and large enough for easy reading. Clear hierarchy should be followed as well.

Also for creating a great clean simple icons design you can use enough white or empty space. Extra spaces keep elements individual and for that reason more readable and easier to work with. In case you use some extra space between simple web icons this do not harm to the design of your site at all.

Speaking about the minimalistic trend in most cases it's not totally minimal. In spite of its great amount of white space there are still some simple icons, light textures, neat styles and bold fonts. Bear in mind that minimal is not exactly the same as simple. Initially minimal meant plain typographic excluding images and styling. Nowadays there's a great amount of various website pages over the Internet. Thats why modern design demands something more than black text on white background. Add more zest to your web site layout with a help of some unusual coloring, catchy simple icons, half-transparent and lightweight textures and patterns. Also reduce design elements to the most essential items.

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

Vintage Icons - Grab The Attention Of Your Visitors!

Retro steadily increases its right place in the modern internet site design field. No doubt the best representatives of traditional beauty and noble taste are Vintage icons. In the present day modern site style generally contains some vintage twist. Retro and Vintage are the most well-known and widespread trends in the contemporary digital art. Vintage icons, textures, patterns as well as clip-art bring mystery to your design. They make you dive into the atmosphere of the old good times, when everything appeared to be so simple, harmless and noble. People always associate childhood or youth with happy times. Thus vintage style revives due to this psychological peculiarity of the human nature.

What is retro and how it is realized in the modern day website design industry

In modern art retro becomes some conscious norm. It is simple to find sights of retro style in the present day web design in the form of vintage icons, old-styled backgrounds, aged photography etc. No doubt it gives some zest to the look and feel of the ordinary websites.

The new retro style quite often incorporates the Web 2.0 look with a vintage twist. It requires good recipe of combining the modern clean blocks and the outdated, aged elements of design like Vintage web icons, styles and color palettes.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Line Icons Helpful Info

Lines are more frequently used for outlining the contours of objects and putting an emphasis on edges. Line icons can be the wonderful decoration of any web page design, however if you have a skill to design them thoroughly.

What exactly are line icons?

What is actually a line? It's a form containing both width and length but eliminating depth.The line is not only straight but more often curved. Inspite of the being static shapes, Line icons can make an illusion of the dynamic objects. The mood is generally being conditioned by the lines direction. For example horizontal lines in Line web icons bring the feeling of calmness, harmony and stability. Speaking about the vertical lines - they strive for the light movement. Energy and stronger dynamic feeling pertain to the diagonal lines. If you'd like to develop refine and ultra-modern line icons designs you should use mix of straight lines and curves.

Line Icons Art

Definitely the 1st kind of line art that familiar to a great amount of artists is curve stitching. It was carried out with threads of various colours and also needle. The canvas was a cardboard first. This movement is also well-known as "String Art". Its creator was a Mary Boole. He developed it as the accessory material for kids to help them study geometry of angles and spaces. Spirelli is a type of string art that has been usually applied to scrap-booking and making cards. Line art lived also like illustrations for print sources before the photography was created. At that time line art involved only black and white colors. Several shades of gray were also acceptable.Line art includes geometry and art and in such a way becomes appealing to both technical and creative sides of human nature, Designing Line icons may develop special imagination and creativity along with 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.

Vintage Icons And Vintage Web Design

In case your want your web site looks archaic - use Vintage icons. They are one of the most noticeable and easy-to-apply graphical elements. Vintage web icons suppose authentic use of vintage typography, less-saturated colors and retro textures to help creating the vintage air emanating from the web-site. Antique air is going to charm and brings unconscious smiles to the faces of your website visitors.

Retro trend is all about the styles of the70s and 80s. Speaking about retro advertising art it appeared in 1950. 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.Without doubt 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 icons that contain hints to retro cars concepts. This will help to attract more attention to your webpage layout. They are ideal for the websites concerning auto sales, transporting services, tour sites etc.Also you can face a such common character as a pin-up model that is used in vintage icons design as well as other web page graphics styling. It usually depicts exaggerated, idealized images of how the really beautiful and sexy woman should look like. Pin-up images are great for vintage web icons or clip-art designed for the model agencies, websites regarding health and beauty areas.

In case you have a internet 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. Apply your creativity and use them as you want. Thus you will surprise your visitors. As far as you know it is a very good way to turn your potentional clients minds to your web business.

Patterns and Typography for vintage icons and other graphics

Highly 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 absolutely free to find and purchase the fonts to match your design on the internet.

If being relevant to the topic, general style and idea of your website vintage-inspired design is supposed to look modern and appropriate, but no old-fashioned. The goal is to create the warm and noble, antique feel using Vintage web icons and also images and styled blocks for the site design. Definitely your visitors will return to your site with a thankful smile over and over again.

But try not to make your vintage design look too stuffy, you must be aware that professional layout is formal-looking and the major emphasis should be made on the goods, services or content your internet site provides.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Realistic Icons Information

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

Details about history of realistic icons