by Justas | Jan 5, 2016 | Articles
Hey! Hope you’re doing well! This is my first article this year, and it will be a little different. January is usually the time when you reflect on the past twelve months and look into the future. So this time we’ll be talking about setting up goals and achieveing them in the upcoming year. You may remember from my Dribbble success story that I’m one of those people who make New Year resolutions. People often laugh and don’t take us seriously. Frankly, they have a point — every January gyms all over the globe are packed, and then dead empty on February. It seems that people make New Year resolutions just to break them. People in general are lazy, and if you want to achieve something, you need to fight your laziness every single day. I want to believe that I’m a person who can control his life, make conscious decisions and follow through on them. I’m not saying that I complete all my resolutions, but defining them definitely helps me to turn my career and life to the wanted direction. You could never reach your destination if you don’t know where you are going, right? So this year instead of being lazy and making fake promises to yourself, let’s build a system that will help you reach your goals! Here are a few simple rules that keep me motivated in pursuing my goals: Write your resolutions down! One of the most important things is to write down your resolutions (preferably by hand) and put this list where you can see it every single day. If you keep...
by Justas | Dec 29, 2015 | Articles
Hey! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are doing well getting out the post-holiday food coma. I assume that the last pre-Christmas week was very busy for everybody, so I didn’t want to bug you with another icon tutorial. But believe me, I have some great stuff for you in the new year! Already looking forward to sharing it with you all! This will be next year, and for now I’m writing this short article to say how thankful I am that you find time to read my articles. Thank You! About a half a year ago I started Icon Utopia just for fun. There wasn’t enough of useful information about icon design on the internet, so I thought I could try and write a couple of articles. I struggled to launch the blog page, wrote a few pieces and put them up online. What happened next blew my mind! I received a ton of positive feedback, my inbox was filled with the whole bunch of emails where people expressed that I helped them in one way or another. And I can’t describe how amazing this is to go through all these positive emails! From that moment I started writing not just for myself or for fun, but for you too! And it’s been an amazing journey so far. Nevertheless, I believe this is just the beginning, and a lot of great things awaits in the nearest future. So I just want you to know that I’m endlessly grateful for your attention, wonderful comments and feedback. This is what keeps me going and writing these weekly articles! Just...
by Justas | Dec 18, 2015 | Inspiration
Hey guys! How are you doing? Once again I present you collection of great icon sets. Todays selection includes icons I’ve collected through last two weeks since I skipped previous week. It’s nice to see so many different styles and interesting approaches on icon design. I’m sure you will discover some great icon designers and awesome icon sets....
by Justas | Dec 15, 2015 | Icon Tutorials
Hey! How are you doing, guys? Hope you started your week in a great mood ready to rock it, because it’s high time to learn something new and useful about icon design! In this week’s article we’ll be talking about the importance of spacing and proper aligning in icon design. One of the things that distinguishes great icons from poor ones is aligning and spacing between objects. Based upon the questions I get, it is also the most common problem people face. Correct alignment of the object and its precise spacing is what takes your icons to the whole other level. And I’m not even talking about using any fancy grids. It is as simple as maintaining the same size gaps around the objects throughout both the icon and the overall set. I already mentioned quite a lot of times that you should use the same elements throughout the set to maintain consistency. But sticking to the same aligning and even spacing is just as important because: It ensures consistency of the set; Your icons look more professional; Balanced icons are visually appealing. When using one spacing system you create visual connection between related elements and the other way around — separate elements that don’t go together. It helps isolate main elements from the secondary ones, too. Let’s take a look at this credit card icon: This icon is created on 64px grid, and I’m using 4px stroke weight. I decided that this would also be the size of the smallest object used in my icon. (This size is marked as 1X) Next, to separate the magnetic line from...
by Justas | Dec 11, 2015 | Inspiration
Today I decided to do something different. Instead of usual best icons of the week I present you collection of best stormtrooper helmets! I’m sure you will discover some great designers and awesome...
