Thursday, February 24, 2011

Vintage Icons

Retro takes over the modern internet page design industry. Without doubt the best representatives of classic beauty and noble taste are Vintage web icons. Nowadays modern webpage style generally contains some vintage twist. Retro and Vintage are the most famous and also widespread trends in the up to date digital art. Vintage web icons, textures, patterns and clip-art are so fascinating and mysterious. They make you dive into the atmosphere of the old happy times, when everything seemed to be so simple, innocent and noble. People always associate childhood or youth with good times. Therefore vintage style revives for this reason psychological peculiarity of the human nature.

Learn all about retro style

Speaking about retro in simple terms we should outline an aged or culturally outdated trend that has become some conscious norm in the modern art. Having emerged in the post-modern art, it penetrates into the present day website design in the form of vintage icons, old-style backgrounds, aged photography etc. It is obvious it gives some zest to the feel and look of the ordinary internet sites.

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 It needs good recipe of combining today's clean blocks and the outdated, aged elements of design like Vintage icons, styles and color palettes.

Vintage Icons As A Part Of Vintage Design

Vintage web icons is one of the most noticeable and easy-to-apply graphical elements you may use in your web site to make it look archaic. With a help of vintage web icons you can easily create the vintage atmosphere at your webpage Also use vintage typography, less-saturated colors and retro textures. Your internet-site visitors will definitely like antique air of your new design.

Retro trend is all about the styles of the70s and 80s. Retro advertising art from the 1950s is bold and striking. Computer technologies allow to put a new face on this type of art using its characters in webpage 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.Certainly among the most frequently 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 include hints to retro cars concepts. This will help to attract more attention to your webpage layout. They are ideal for the internet sites concerning auto sales, transporting services, tour sites etc.Also you can face a such well-known character as a pin-up model that is used in vintage icons design as well as other internet site graphics styling. Often it presents images of how the really sexy and attractive 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.

Military and security guard web pages may successfully use soldiers and officers with an outdated appearance to win the site visitors favour and trust.

Usage of specific characters is not limited to the above-mentioned ones. You may apply creativity and use them unconventionally. This will make people surprise and thus remember your website.

Patterns and Typography for vintage icons and other graphics

Vintage patterns recommended for usage in vintage icons design is the following:

  • 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 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 web site vintage-inspired layout is supposed to look fashionable and appropriate, but no old-fashioned. The goal is to create the cozy and noble, antique feel using Vintage web icons as well as images and styled blocks for the website layout. Without any doubt your visitors will come back to your internet site with a happy smile over and over again. They will feel more comfortable and cozy at your web-site.

But try to avoid stuffiness in your vintage design look. Don't forget that the main emphasis should be made on the goods, services or content material of your site not on the webpage design.

Realistic Icons Important Info.

Realistic icons are crucial elements of the modern website design. You can also meet them in softwares, applications and add-ons, etc.

As far as you know website pages demand special ways of representation and promotion. One example of these ways is including realistic icons into the web design. They help users to get a effective initial impression of what business area and what products he/she is going to have to do with. If you want to make icons noticeable - place them on the web-site's home page.

Of course if you wish to have icons that fulfil all your demands you need to hire the skilled designer who can make some unique set of icons. But take into account that such method of creating of realistic icons is quite expensive and takes a great deal of time. The custom order result still remains indefinite Even professional site designers fall short of the mark known as non-uniqueness. To avoid wasting time and smoothen things down they take icons created earlier and simply play with the colors and shades, use some other effects and sell realistic icons as exclusive items. Though in fact they aren't.

Finding authoritative icons resources it is one other way of getting wonderful web icons. They're different Realistic icons stocks and providers on the internet. The excellent benefit of this method of getting web icons is that you see what you pay for. The price may be less than in case with custom orders. Besides, you save much valuable time. So as far as you see now - stocks are much more preferable for finding well designed and low-priced realistic icons .

Tips for utilizing realistic icons

Creating realistic icons you need to build the basic pictograms first. It should look vivid enough if being displayed at worse resolution, resized, discolored or blurred. The icon should be recognizable at first sight. How to check your icons? If it is possible to discern the icon within less than a second - it is well done.<\p>

The next step is to make realistic icons more eye-catching with the addition of decorative elements. Icons shouldn't be overloaded with the details and color tints. Design should look integral and reserved. You may make the edges anti-aliased. The decoration should not detract from the icons essence and functions.

Vector format in which the icons are stored makes them pretty easy to modify. It allows you to resize, rotate, adjust the edges and modify outlines. You can also change the color scheme and add more details and so on. So you don't have to be an experienced designer or an artist to use them.

If you need to design the interface layout of the new software program or IT services - Realistic icons may be very helpful in this task. But don't forget if you'd like to develop good quality and eye-catching realistic icons you need to be patient because it's not easy. Truly realistic images may be produced only if you take and edit the high-resolution photos. So keep this in mind.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Get All Information About 2d Icons And Models

2D web icons as well as other objects are notable for their flexibility. This is achieved by the peculiarity of rendering them at different resolutions suitable for various output devices.

2D Icons items:

  • raster pictures (digital graphics);
  • styled text as a typeset for 2D Icons;
  • vector models (geometric graphics).

All these items can be managed by 2D transformations for example rotation, scaling or angular position etc. Meshing basic models you will get more advanced ones.

Due to the layers technique 2D icons can create the illusion of all 3D characteristics like shadow, reflection or highlighting. The layers really should maintain the definite hierarchy and order carefully. This makes editing 2D icons and similar objects easier.

2.5D Icons as the pseudo 3D kind of 2D Icons

2Dicons are also well-known as 2.5D models. This technology offers web designers ability to work with any layer without the need of touching the others. The most of the well known graphics editors prefer this kind of 2D object development.

2.5D is a synonym to pseudo 3D. It means "two-and-a-half-dimensional" graphics. Models which were built with a help of with 2.5D technology appear to be tridimensional while in fact they are not. The featured projection represents both front and side views.

This technology used for designing 2D web icons is frequently achieved by the special lighting effect. 3D illusion can be reached as a result of virtual light source to the left or to the right side and above the users monitor.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Various Techniques For Line Icons Creation

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

One more technique is adding various halftones and shades to the object by using short lines and crosshatching. Their frequency and pencil pressure can be different. And this variety creates more three-dimensional look to the object. So this technique is definitely helping in creation of wonderful Line web icons, logos and buttons.Furthermore lets get information on open lines. It is such kind of the lines where the dots not combining the singular elements. The lines can be also parallel, gesture-like, contour etc. You may be want to know what's bezier curves in computer graphics? It is such sort of the curves which are important for creating complex line shapes. These curves are useful small features necessary for developing the vector shapes like line icons, different buttons etc.Computer technologies make it possible to reproduce the identical designs or develop new shapes based on some older ones without extra efforts and time. Another advantage is that it is possible to return to the previous adjustments with a help of the history panel. So you don't have to design Line icons from scratch after you've made some errors.

Realistic Icons Help And Advice

Realism traces back to the 1850s when this movement spread in French art. Over the hundreds of years it came through all types of art and design. Speaking about realism in web site design we can easily say that it is represented here by Realistic web icons.

Realistic icons history

Simple Icons As Best Representative Of Minimalistic Internet Site Design

Simple web icons are created not to make the design beautiful but rather minimal and contemporary. Great and light Simple web icons are aimed to improve web page user interaction.

Minimalism in website design

Let's find out what minimalistic webpage design means. Undoubtedly the first features are simplicity and lightweight elements. Simple icons involve all this. This type of icons doesn't have complex wordings, figures, textures and patterns. Sometimes less even indicates more. It depends on areas and extent. Web design is exactly that area.

Today minimalistic design is something unusual. High modern day technologies frequently lead to the loss of simplicity. Blending minimalistic website design with CSS3 and HTML5 is becoming more well-known and makes you believe that combining simple elegance and usability is the formula for your internet site success. Simple does not necessarily mean primitive. Websites with simple design often contain brave and off-color effects and actively use CSS and Ajax.

Among essential features of the present day simple internet site design are the following:

  • 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;
  • clear and readable typography;

Monday, February 21, 2011

Line Is Refine: Line Icons As An Evidence

We typically use lines for emphasizing edges as well as outlining the contours of objects. If placed and developed reasonably, line icons can be the ideal decoration of any minimalistic or clear web site design.

Line icons - to be or not to be....

What is in fact a line? The shortest definition is the next: line is a form that contain 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 depends on the lines direction. Horizontal lines in Line web icons embody calmness, harmony and stability while the vertical ones strive for the light movement. The diagonal lines reflect energy along with stronger dynamic feeling. If you'd like to develop refine and ultra-modern line icons designs you should use combination of straight lines and curves.

Line art - Line Icons

Undoubtedly the earliest type of line art that familiar to a great amount of artists is curve stitching. It was carried out with threads of various colours as well as needle. The canvas was a cardboard first. String Art is another name for this particular movement. It's creator was a Mary Boole. He developed it as the accessory material for children to assist them to study geometry of angles and spaces. Before the photography appeared line art lived also in the form of illustrations for print sources and included 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, Creating Line icons may develop special imagination and creativity along with calculation skills.Line art has an ability to be printed to the halftone picture without extra conversion. Thus it is different from photography or multi-color painting.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Simple Icons Major Characteristics

Simple web icons are among the principal features of minimalistic design. Additionally, simple icons and other design elements should be used moderately. Among the secrets is minimizing icons use in general. Simple icons are supposed to be used where they are absolutely important and eliminated where it's possible. Optional simple web icons are to be refrained from repetition or eluded. They may serve several functions.

Simple web icons design contains limited amount of color, reserved shades, clear elements, soft lighting. Simple web icons are built out of elegant and simple elements which do not distract website visitors from the main navigation and web site idea.

The following rules for simple icons design can be outlined:

  • minimal usage of duplication
  • less amount of graphical elements
  • maximum intuitive clarity
  • clear typography in simple web icons
  • less icons

How to create minimalistic design with simple web icons

Additionally to simple icons themselves light-weight background textures and patterns are very important for the design and content perception. The background pattern or images should not catch all the attention of your visitors. The eyes should focus on the webpage content or some main blocks. Producing the background use a light simple shade. This makes it secondary compared with the foreground items like simple web icons.

Another prominent feature of the lightweight and clear design is undoubtedly clear typography. Simple icons names (if there are any) should be precise, meaningful and equivalent to their function. Headings placed on simple web icons need to be of readable font and large enough for easy reading.

Also for developing a great clean simple icons design you can use enough white or empty space. Extra spaces keep elements more readable. As a result it is more effortless to work with them. Even if you use some extra space between simple web icons this don't 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. Keep in mind that minimal is not exactly the same as simple. From the very begining minimal meant plain typographic not including images and styling. Nowadays there is a great amount of various web sites over the Internet. Thats why modern design requires 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 elements of design to the most essential items.

Simple is often used like a synonym of smart. While creating the modern web site design you should bear in mind the eternal truth stating that genius is based on simplicity. Simple icons is the greatest solution if you would like your internet site look wonderful and professional.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Helpful Information Regarding 2d Icons

Today 2D web icons is a wide spread trend in the present day web design. These two-dimensional icons are well known for their flexibility and comparative simplicity. 2.5D Icons is the type of 2D Icons that is closer to pseudo 3D representation.Such models depict both front and side views.

2D computer graphics was initially based on vector graphics devices. 2D web icons are among the most significant two-dimensional digital design items.

What's actually 2D?Generally it is being associated with computer graphics and determined as the two-dimensional way of digital images generation. Two-dimensional models are mainly 2D geometric ones, digital images and texts. The term 2D usually means as models themselves as the techniques and tricks specific to them either.

2D icons and objects are independent objects with their own semantic value. 2D graphics makes it possible to get more direct control of the image than 3D technology. This may be one good reason why they're so beloved and desired in the world of present day website design and digital art. 3D graphics is more effective realized in animation or photography than typography or even web design.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Professional Web Site Layout With Business Icons

How to choose a proper design for your web page? It is a very difficult task. The header graphics, logos, business icons and content placeholders as well as the fonts - all this stuff needs to be well designed. While doing this keep in mind the business area and desires of your potential customers.

The powerful site should include your potential customers expectations. For this purpose use the right business icons, buttons and styles for content blocks.

First of all you need to think about what's the main audience of your website and what do your potential customers expect. Name, hosting provider, content and design style must be carefully chosen according to the results of your research. Initially you are to correlate the designed color scheme and layout together 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.

To make the right choice you should take into account that different colors evoke certain emotions in various groups of people. For example, you've got a night-club related business and wish to develop incredible web presence. Use business icons of bright disco colors and unusual forms and you'll get the wonderful result. 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. Web site design should be clear, calm and reserved. Also avoid playful lines and even light-minded graphics. So build a 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 Fever

However sometimes positive aspects can be turned into negatives. For example the thoroughness and truthfulness of the picture may be the drawback of 3D web icons. In other words while drawing some object you're much more free to use artistic vision. Let's take a mobile-phone for example. So its possible to draw it rather similar to a real one but eliminate some extra details, shades and highlights. However, your consciousness discerns it as a phone easily. Often schematic drawings work even better than 3D models. But to decide what to use you should analyze each definite case. To create an object and make it seem closer to real one 3d icons should repeat carefully every detail and line. So it's much more a kind of technical representation than a piece of art. Though some illustrators manage to develop abstract 3D icons that involve creative thought and look like true works of art. Realistic and accurate modeling is one of popular trend of 3D design today.Speaking about realistic look, if you are intending to use some characters as icons, we can definitely say that 3D icons are much more realistic than 2D ones. The characters may stay cartoonish and this will give zest to your web page.

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

Creating the icons design for your web page please remember the following hardships:

Weak resolution of the viewers screens makes it impossible to depict 3d icons in all their glory and details;

due to the fact that the monitor screen is 2D device we cant see the true three-dimensional object as we see it in reall life.

2D space is easier to be modified and manipulated in comparison with 3D one;

the non-standard applications essential for correct viewing of 3D web Icons may force the user to download extra 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 are more complex items. Also 3D web Icons requirements are much severer. 3D icons may have no creativity and abstract air but the facts of depth and volume which are successfully created with 3D technology are incontestable.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Glass Web Icons -The Professional Look Of Your Webpage

Web icons impart classy and clean look to your web site making its design attractive and professional. Nevertheless this effect should be reasonably used because it can be harmful for the design perception.

Glass iconsare extremely popular and attractive elements of web site or blog decor. This glass icon style is so effective thing that can easily impart the perfect, clear and professional look to your internet site, presentation or desktop and embody a kind of the "Web 2.0" spirit.

Glass icons usage pro and contra.

Do the elaborate and intricate look of the web icons designed in the glass style turn your brain and you think that it is a hard task to do this? You shouldn't be puzzled - it is pretty obvious that the process of their creation is rather simple. Glass web icons can normally be designed within a couple of minutes with Photoshop, Illustrator or Corel application, so it's not a big deal even for the newbies in the design sphere. So you don't need to have extra web design knowledges. All 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 is considered to have been borrowed from the Apples OSX operating system style and copied by Windows. Obviously you may argue that Glass icons are so firmly 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 can not deny the fact that the glass icons style has a great deal of advantages .

Probably the most important feature of the modern web-site is social bookmarking web icons. Using eye-catching glossy icons for this purpose is a great benefit for the online site promotion. Eye-catching social bookmarks improve the possibility of the site visitors clicking on them and the amount of the clicks increases correspondingly. So due to this fact you'll be able to promote your content more effectively.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Who is the winner - 2D icons or 3D icons?

2D and 3D web icons design - what's the difference?

Speaking about 3d Icons we should point out that the light source plays a very important role for creating authentic three-dimensional images. For sure the using several light sources in webpage design today is preferable but remember that they should follow fundamental laws of physics and be truthful. So if you would like to make 3D icons look softer and more realistic - use several lights.

The aim of 2D and 3D icons is to represent the volume found in the three-dimensional world but 2D and 3D icons obtain this illusion by using different means. 2D Icons can undoubtedly represent volume to less extent than 3D 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. Also the shades usage is really limited.

3D web icons have all these features instead. Nevertheless do not forget that 3D is nothing but mathematical replication of the data that unfortunately restricts its usage. In some case 3D objects like 3D Icons may be successfully replaced by 2D ones or by the videos with the sounds. 3D dimension can be created with the software used for 3D modeling. It is very important depict 3D icons in correlation with the other objects in the neighborhood and the environment they are placed into.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Ever Thought About Implementing DreamWeaver Templates?

It is possible to use these web templates to create web pages that have a common structure and appearance. Dreamweaver Themes are also helpful if you need to make sure that all of the pages in a site share certain characteristics. You are able to change info very easily on the group of pages by editing the web theme and then reapplying it to those pages. While elements unique to each page (such as text or graphics) stay unchanged, common theme elements (such as menu bars and links) are updated on all of the pages that use the template. For example, if you change the copyright info in the Footer of the theme - Dreamweaver will instantly amend the footers for you automatically. As you can see this is the greates tool to save your time!

Today over the Internet it is easy to find a fantastic number of Dreamweaver Templates to any taste. But first of all you should decide what kind of theme you want to have: free Dreamweaver Template or premium one. If you really wish to save your pennies - Free Dreamweaver template can be a very good choice. But if you would like to have exclusive design and superb quality you should look for premium Dreamweaver Templates. Anyway you have a unique opportunity to change your webpage in no time.

So at the end I can definitely claim that Dreamweaver website templates are aimed to save your valuable time and money. Themes are a great way to maintain consistency across your website. Even if you have some difficulties dont panic - 24 hour support teams always glad to help. You can also use step by step web design online course or tutorials. So make your choice today - present your web site with a new Dreamweaver theme and attract more visitors right now! Use this unique chance to be on the crest of the wave of Internet world.