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50 Excellent Icon Design Tutorials
Icons are essential in any graphical user interface. They are effective visual cues for performing tasks or navigating to a certain location. There are many resources online that can help and inspire you in your own icon designs and – in this collection – we share some of the best tutorials on the topic.
In this article, you’ll find a wide selection of tutorials and resources to help you learn about designing icons.
General Tutorials
1. The Making of an Icon
2. How To Make An Icon
3. 10 Mistakes in Icon Design
4. Icon Design: Bitmap vs Vector
5. Professional technique for creating icons
6. 7 Principles of Effective Icon Design
7. 10 Tips for Effective Icon Design
8. Icon Design Explained (Quickly)
9. How to Design Mini Icons
Illustrator Tutorials
10. Make a Handy 3D Vector Calendar Icon
11. Vector Film Slate Icon
12. How to Turn Glasses into a Great Geek Icon
13. Detailed Camera with Photo Icon
14. How to Design a Set of Multicolored Buddy Icons
15. Adobe Bridge Icon
16. How to Create a Vector Safari Compass in Illustrator
17. Translucent IM Style Illustrator Icon Tutorial
18. Create a Vector RSS Icon with Illustrator
19. Juicy RSS Feed Icon
20. How to Make a Vector Military Cap Icon
21. Delicious Chinese Food Icon
22. Transparent Battery Icon
23. Vector Lock Icon Design
Photoshop Tutorials
24. Custom Hard Drive Icon
25. Create a Speed Gauge and Watch Icon
26. Design a Detailed Compass Icon
27. Safety Icon Design
28. Design a Glossy Download Icon
29. Creating a Cool Yellow Helmet Icon
30. Create a Jaguar Style Folder Icon
31. Vista Error Icon
32. Vista Folder Icon Tutorial
33. Design The iTunes Icon For The iPhone
34. XP Style Money Icon
35. Angry Emoticon
36. XP Style iPod Icon
37. LG LCD Monitor Icon
38. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Style Icons
39. Clock Icon
40. World Icon Tutorial
41. How to Make a Folder Icon
42. Glossy RSS icon
43. Recreate the Famous Yahoo! Smiley
44. Skype Buddy Icon
45. Create A Mockingly Smiley
46. iTune Icon
47. Fast Folder Icon Making
48. Stylish Search Icon
49. Creating a clock icon
50. Computer Icon Tutorial
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58 Comments
Kayla
February 11th, 2009
Great list! I was actually looking for good icon tutorials the other day, as I need to get more experienced with the Adobe software I just received a month ago. There seems to be way too many pencil or RSS feed icon tutorials out there…thanks for adding this list with some variety!
Raymond Selda
February 11th, 2009
In my opinion, designing icons is time consuming but very rewarding once you’ve finished it. I know that sooner or later I’m going to design one but for now I’m very thankful to the designers that give away their amazing icons for free.
Thank you for this comprehensive post. This will be my first stop whenever I need to learn how to design an icon.
Big Slick Design
February 11th, 2009
I’ve been pondering about creating my own unique RSS icon. Nothing that takes away from the traditional RSS feel or anything, but one that just adds some more uniqueness to my blog.
These tutorials are going to be bookmarked for that, and other icon designs I do in the future.
Thanks.
Lori Cappozzi
February 11th, 2009
Great job, thanks for the cool collection. I’ve just digg for later design use.
armando
February 11th, 2009
Yay, another great icon collections.. bookmarked!
Branson
February 11th, 2009
Very nice collection! Its not really a talked about topic much and I like how you shed some light on it. Thanks!
insic
February 12th, 2009
wow! awesome icons tutorial. very inspiring list.
iDevelopThings
February 12th, 2009
Weee, those are really cool.. Thanks.
Sajal Dutta
February 12th, 2009
Wow!
Gio Borje
February 12th, 2009
Link #6 brings you to PSDTUTS’ Valentine’s Day tut
Martin Leblanc
February 12th, 2009
I love icons! Great list!
Umut
February 12th, 2009
Great post. Will be very handy. Thank you.
Jacob Gube
February 12th, 2009
@Gio Borje: Somehow there was an extra “v” on the link, which redirected you to another post. Thanks for catching that.
corina
February 12th, 2009
love the icons. perrrfect.
Lost Guy
February 12th, 2009
great post just added to my delicous
Gary
February 12th, 2009
Icons were used by the ignorant (illiterate) populations of very early peoples to communicate. Long ago, a much better visual communication method was developed, written LANGUAGE! Repeated tests have shown that icons are much harder to locate than words. Maybe it is developer’s condescending opinion of users that perpetuates icons. How is a bitty trashcan icon easier to locate than the word “delete”?
Timothy
February 12th, 2009
Nice list. Should come in handy. Thanks!
Webdesigner Depot
February 12th, 2009
Thanks for the great list! I already tagged it, because I know this is something I will be referring to multiple times in the future.
Vasily
February 12th, 2009
great post, really nice list!
another great tut i recently came across:
http://dryicons.com/blog/2009/02/09/icon-design-tutorial-how-to-make-a-calendar-icon/
John
February 12th, 2009
Slick, will bookmark!
Webdesigner Depot
February 12th, 2009
Nice collection Jacob!
Pure Roon
February 13th, 2009
Great list, love some of the RSS ideas, gonna give a few a spin at work today!
Anton
February 13th, 2009
Please also check the icon design tutorials at http://www.softfacade.com
Prakash jayaseelan
February 14th, 2009
great works i love it bookmark this page
Webdesigner
February 15th, 2009
amazing list… very nice collection
thanks a lot
Chris Wallace
February 15th, 2009
These are great Jacob. You know I suck at icon design so I’ll be running through most of these at some point.
Dietmar
February 16th, 2009
Great list of tutorials, can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Aaron
February 17th, 2009
Very nice list, should be really useful. Saved to my Delicious. :)
Eli
February 18th, 2009
Thanks for the roundup! Will come in handy very soon :)
Deepali
February 18th, 2009
Very good collection… your tutorials very helpful to make good quality icon.
RK Nair
February 21st, 2009
It gives versatality for designers multiple talents. Thanks for giving optional icon designs inputs.
Anubis From Memphis
February 22nd, 2009
Thank you so much for sharing!
These tutorials will certainly become handy!
annamarie
March 2nd, 2009
Hi Jacob
Nice collection.Thanks for sharing
Would benefit and will also serve as great reference for upcoming designers and who are aspiring to become one.
In all great collection keep up the good work.
Thanks.
Anna.
Writer Dave
March 4th, 2009
Lots of great, quality examples here! Thank you.
cagwait
March 10th, 2009
Great list. Thanks for putting this together
Cindy Lee
March 20th, 2009
Great list, I will check all tutorial and learn.
Thanks.
Chand Patel
July 19th, 2009
I love to have this wonderful site and its features
Defiantly promote and will also endow with as great orientation for upcoming learners.
Thanks
Chand Patel
Marc
September 14th, 2009
Lots of great, quality examples here! Thank you.
Biju Subhash
October 10th, 2009
Great article…..
Thank you for sharing….
Jorge
December 4th, 2009
Great Collection of icon tutorials these will come in handy the next time I want to create a logo :)
Carmen Karma
December 25th, 2009
This is a awesome list!!! Kudo!
e-okul
January 2nd, 2010
thanks , will bookmark
Nina
February 24th, 2010
Great and extremely helpful.
Thanks for sharing :)
EL-GAMAH
April 1st, 2010
It’s a great list. I know most of their items in website http://www.vectortutsplus.com.
Thanks for sharing them!
vitaliy
April 25th, 2010
bookmarks… wow!
Luís Soares
May 20th, 2010
Great article. Just one reference article missing:
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/01/21/realism_in_ui_design/
Scott Corgan
May 21st, 2010
Icons are those little things that you don’t know matter more than those big things that you think matter more than those little things. Makes sense?
Thanks for the references! Bookmarked so that I can go through them all throughout today!
Richard A. Lewis
July 22nd, 2010
I enjoyed the 10 Mistakes of Icon Design the most. Thank you for posting all of this.
ajay
August 28th, 2010
plz make icon for website it’ required for me
Peg
October 12th, 2010
very good collection. Nicely presented with all the pictures, too. Saves me lots of research time! Thanks!
Andrew
November 1st, 2010
This is a great collection.Kudos!
Sunita
December 17th, 2010
ITS JUST “WOW” .. too good collection..thankssss
Cgbaran
January 19th, 2011
Great collection thanks
almekhlafi
January 25th, 2011
Very nice and smart idea
thankyyou
Stan
July 6th, 2011
Great selection of articles and advice. I appreciate the tutorials and ideas listed here as well. Thanks!
web India
July 9th, 2011
This is really nice. Very impressive.
Laurie Katona
July 16th, 2011
FABULOUS RESOURCES AND IDEAS. THANK YOU FOR ALL THIS GREAT INFORMATION.
zahirul
September 1st, 2011
These information is effective for all designer.
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