[Tango-artists] Techniques

[Ryan Collier]

I've been working on a few tutorials. I'll be posting them soon. 
 

Ryan Collier
GroupWise Design Manager
rcollier at novell.com
801.861.3040

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>>> Sacrat <sacrat at gmail.com> 07/26/06 3:49 AM >>> 
I don't know if I'm the only person having this question, but still...
Should we have some basic techniques for creating Tango- style icons 
described?

For example, if the goal is making pixel- clear icons with highly 
professional look (like http://mezich.livejournal.com/13176.html) some 
things must be clarified:

No bitmap resampling.
I think it's pretty obvious for anyone with basic small- sized graphics 
design skills that one of the most certain way to kill an icon is making 
one in one size, render and then scale it down (or even worse -  up) for 
others.
Instead an icon should be redrawn manually at a desired size or scaled 
in vector editor with needful adjustments of elements to make them get 
into the pixel grid.

Consistent color
I've already argued with Jakub about that but the thing is what we're 
trying to get: a resample- like look or consistent and clear icon set.
Right now some smaller icons have shifted colors, compared to bigger 
versions and it's not because of some technical limitations: same icons 
can be redone without a "color loss".

Clear edges
In order to create pixel- perfect edges one must follow two basic rules:
1. stick to pixel grid and refer to rendering output when possible
2. control line width, mostly adjusting it to 1 px.

There're many more things to mention in order to have a consistent icon 
theme look, but these are the major I think.

The less problems remain unclear the fewer problems the project would 
face in the future.

P.S.: if any, I'm even ready to try making a tutorial, covering the 
process of creating a complete icon set (all sizes + SVG) in Inkscape 
(which I do personally dislike) or Illustrator.

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