Business Icons

How to find a proper design for your web site? This can be a really hard task. You need to design the header graphics and logo, business icons and content placeholders as well as choose the fonts based on the business area and desires of your potential customers.

The powerful webpage ought to include your potential customers expectations. For this reason use the right business icons, buttons and styles for content blocks.

The first step as the first brick is very crucial. At the very begining you have to decide what is the main audience of your 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 and design style. Initially you are to correlate the planned color scheme and layout with your potential customers expectations. You should feel what colors and styles of business icons as well as other elements of design reflect the business area your company presents.

Please keep in mind that different colors evoke certain emotions in various groups of people. For example if you are planning to create the site for some nightclub, it is more efficient to use business icons of bright disco colors and unusual forms. You may design them to give a dynamic and lively feel, air of relax and pleasure to your site. Some tints of red as manifestation of passion and sex are pertinent for business icons, logos or buttons in such a case. But don't use bright colors if you need to build the website for some consulting company. Website design should be clear, calm and reserved. As well 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 an internet site . that show professionalism and stability of your company to your potential clients.

3D icons: Artistic Or Realistic?

However sometimes advantages can be turned into drawbacks. Such as the thoroughness as well as truthfulness of the picture may be the disadvantage of 3D web icons. In other words while drawing some object you are much more free to use artistic vision. As an example, if we take a cell-phone, you can draw it rather similar to what we associate with its name but eliminate some extra details, shades and highlights. However, your consciousness discerns it as a phone easily. In some cases schematic drawings are much more better than 3D models. You should analyze each particular situation. To create an object and make it seem closer to real one 3d icons should repeat very carefully every detail and line. So to answer the question we can say it is more like a kind of technical representation than a piece of art. Nevertheless we sometimes can see 3D icons that involve creative thought and look like true works of art. Realistic and accurate modeling is one of famous trend of 3D design nowadays.If you are going to use some characters as icons, 3D icons are going to appear much more realistic than 2D ones. The characters may remain cartoonish and this will give zest to your website.

Let's enumerate the technical issues you may face while using 3D icons.

Creating the icons design for your website please take into account the following hardships:

It is impossible to display all the glory and details of 3d icons with poor resolution of the viewers monitors;

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

2D space is simpler to be modified and controlled in comparison with 3D one;

the non-standard applications essential for correct viewing of 3D web Icons may force the user to download additional software which is definitely not convenient.

In conclusion we can say that both 2D and 3D icons are based on geometric data but 3D objects are the sculpture models, they're more complex items. Also 3D web Icons requirements are much severer. 3D icons may lack creativity and abstract air but the facts of depth and volume which are effectively produced with 3D technology are incontestable.

Glass Web Icons

Web icons impart classy and clean look to your website making its design eye-catching and professional. Though this effect should be reasonably used since it can be harmful for the design perception.

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

Glass icons usage pro and contra.

In spite of the elaborate and intricate feel and look of the web icons designed in the glass style, it is obvious that the process of their creation is rather simple. You can create Glass web icons within a few minutes using Photoshop, Illustrator or Corel software. All that 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). Certainly 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 many advantages .

Probably the most important feature of the present day internet site is social bookmarking web icons. Using eye-catching glossy icons for this purpose is a wonderful advantage for the site promotion. Attractive social bookmarks raise the probability of the visitors clicking on them and the amount of the clicks increases correspondingly. So due to this fact you are able to promote your content more effectively.

Glass Icons

Glass web 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.

Other types of the glossy web icons design that can be marked out:

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

Glossy icons can be aqua, crystal, plastic etc. and at the same time transparent and half-transparent.

Moreover, there are partly glass and partly stained icons meaning the objects contain some glassy or stained elements.

Glass icons as well as other types of icons are often depicted with reflecting. It is one of the standard features of the "Web 2.0" icons. You may find various tutorials on the internet instructing to create vertical reflection effect for web icons.

The clean look of glass icons makes navigating through the internet pages playful and attracts a lot of people. In the Internet sources you may find a huge selection of tutorials about the ways of creating such neat web icons.

Tips for fast and simple creation of glass web icons.

Adobe Photoshop is the number 1 software for creating web icons. Photoshop is becoming steadily more and more flexible 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 ability to combine pixel painting with vector tool for creating glass icons, buttons, characters etc. is an essential feature of the latest Photoshop versions.<\p>

The easiest way to design Glass icons is to make the "glass" layer overlap the image. With a help of the "eraser" tool you will be able 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. As soon as this procedure complete the further adjustments should be applied.

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

2D Icons and 3D Icons Tips

2D and 3D icons design - what is the big difference?

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. It is appropriate and even advisable to use several light sources in internet site design today but they should follow fundamental rules of physics and be truthful. So if you want to make 3D icons look softer and much more realistic - use several lights.

Both 2D and 3D icons represent the volume found in the three-dimensional world but use different methods of creating this illusion. Without doubt the volume can be displayed by 3D Icons to more extent than 2D Icons. One of the minuses of 2D Icons are flat images that show just one perspective. Detailed highlights and imperceptible soft shadows are missing as a rule. The shades usage is restricted as well.

3D web icons can be proud of all these features instead. Nevertheless dont forget that 3D is nothing but mathematical replication of the data that unfortunately limits its usage. In some cases you can effortlessly replace 3D Icons by 2D ones or by the videos with the sounds - but all this depends on situation. Software used for 3D modeling allows to make that 3D dimension. It is recommended to depict 3D icons in correlation with the other objects in the neighborhood and the environment they are placed into.