Oct 01
My NetNewsWire icon v2: Listening and learning…
2004 at 04.04 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Something great about blogging is that I learn a lot because it’s so interactive. I’ve listened to the reactions about the creation of my NetNewsWire icon, so this made me thinking I should just make a second version, an improved version (I may hope!).
Like Bryan Bell did on his blog, here is a comparison of the icons, my 2 versions and his.
My NetNewsWire icon version1
My NetNewsWire icon version2
Bryan Bell's version which is still a "stong" icon. I guess it is a matter of taste which one you prefer.
Most people made it clear to me that my icon lacks a bit of contrast which resulted in a less visible icon in small dimensions, certainly in the satellite part of the icon. First thing I did was changing the drop shadow's position and darkness. Then I've put more contrast in the satellite and gave the smaller versions of the icon special attention by creating a separate version for the 32px and smaller.
Hat off to Apple's icon creators since I now learned first hand how hard it is to make such a slick looking icons especially in small sizes.
This is what you need to do:
- Paste my "NetNewsWire" icon file on the old application icon the traditional way (using command+i etc.)
- Select the application icon in the Finder
- Hold down 2nd mouse button or control click
- Choose "Show Package Content" from the contextual menu
- Double click the folder "Contents"
- And drop my "appIcon.icns" file in the "Resources" folder
- Then click replace (or first copy the old one to your desktop if you want to keep it)
7served
1
I really appreciate this alternate icon. And indeed, the second improved version does even look better. You may also check out my alternate icon . Keep up the excellent work!
2
Hi Wolfgang, your icon is very nice! :-)
3
Thanx :)
4
Nice icon. Making an icon that looks beautiful at both 128px and 16px is tough. You almost always have to make alterations for the smaller sizes. Always good to see someone improving.
5
Veerle,
I think the first icon looks great, in fact i prefer it over V2 in the bigger sizes, but ya the smaller size looks better with V2
6
Grabbed. :) Thanks a lot. It’s a lot nicer than the default.
I thought I’d mention that I had to rename the file to appiconnew.icns to get it to work with the NetNewsWire I downloaded today.
-m
7
If only you could now give us a tutorial on how to make this icon ;)