Icon Utopia Blog
Teaching how to make a steady income and build a career as an icon designer
Your First Icon idea Is Not That Good
Your first icon idea sucks. Okay, it may not be that bad… Frankly, I just needed to really grab your attention. However, the truth is that most of the first ideas you have are indeed not your best ones. Sadly, we tend to completely fall for our first thoughts way too often instead of looking for a better solution.
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Best Icons of the Week (Week 12)
Once again I’ll present you collection of great icon sets I’ve collected through the 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.
Liquid / Fast Icon Tutorial
This week I decided to go with the how-to and make a tutorial about the vector icons with the illusion of moving. Or as I call them – liquid, because these icons look as if they are melting.
I haven’t worked on this style for a while now, however, I get a lot of requests to put together a tutorial on them. Your wish is my command!
Best Icons of the Week (Week 11)
Once again I’ll present you collection of great icon sets I’ve collected through the 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.
Use Basic Shapes to Create Awesome Icons
At times it seems that icons are really complex and hard to create. Guess what — it is easier than you think! When it comes to me, my every other icon is actually made using basic shapes. I rarely use the pen tool, circle and square are my main icon components. Complex icons can be created with simple shapes. You just need to look at them from a different angle. What you should be paying attention to are the main creating blocks of each icon.
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Best Icons of the Week (Week 10)
Once again I’ll present you collection of great icon sets I’ve collected through the 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.
Adobe Illustrator Workspace for icon design
Today I would like to present you my Adobe Illustrator Workspace for icon design. These are the main and most essential tools I’m using when working on my icon design. To be honest, a month ago I didn’t care much about the way my Illustrator is set up. I had dozens of unnecessary tabs and panels opened that only distracted me making it more difficult to find the tools I needed. What I didn’t understand before is how much time I was actually wasting making my way through the piles of useless panels. It might look like just a half a second, but trust me – it matters! The time adds up, and you can save quite some time and nerves at the end of the day if you have your workspace adjusted to the specific thing you’re working on.
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How Dribbble Turned My Hobby Into a Career
It is unbelievable how drastically my life has changed over the past year! And it is all thanks to Dribbble. This is the community of great and supportive creative minds who are always willing to help and inspire you to go further and do more, do better, keep improving every single day!
I thought I would share my Dribbble story to show my gratitude, and also to inspire all of you.
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Best Icons of the Week (Week 9)
Once again I’ll present you collection of great icon sets I’ve collected through the 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.
How to Launch a Successful Cotton Bureau Campaign
I promised to do a quick analysis/feedback session on how to launch a successful cotton bureau campaign, and before I dive straight into it, I want to once again thank everyone who supported Grumpy and bought a t-shirt. You are incredible, and your tees should be sent tomorrow, so you are going to get them very soon! I would love to see you wearing your Grumpy t-shirt, share your pictures with me and the rest of the world using the hashtag #IconUtopia or the contact form – whichever is more comfortable for you! I’m looking forward to your photos! But…First things first: What is Cotton Bureau? Okay, for those of you who are not familiar with it, Cotton Bureau, as they put it themselves, is the best place to buy and sell t-shirts online. Simply said, it’s a little business that lets everyone upload their design, create and then have their t-shirts being sold for two weeks. Afterwards you get your cut from every t-shirt, and your customers get their ridiculously high-quality tees. You can read more about this on Cotton Bureau About Us page. Why Cotton Bureau? There is a pretty reasonable question you might ask — why the Cotton Bureau campaign when I could simply print out the t-shirts, ship and handle everything myself? In the end, I would have made a lot more money. But look at it this way: You’re running your first ever t-shirt campaign. It’s risky as you never know for sure if it is going to be successful or not. And if you want to have the best quality shirts for decent price,... read more
