This is a preview for journalists and developers, since for the final release or any RC (release candidate) the wait is long. Currently there is no demo available, but Google has announced that the source code will be “completely open“,  just to invite curiosity and independent programmers to work in advance about new improvements and add-ons to the basic core of the software.

Chromium OS is an open-source project that aims to build an operating system that provides a fast, simple, and more secure computing experience for people who spend most of their time on the web. Here you can review the project’s design docs, obtain the source code, and contribute. To learn more about the project goals, read the announcement blog post.

Preview

Click on the preview below to see the full artwork.

Tutorial Resources

• Blanched Paper Textures from WeGraphics
• Dancer from Shutterstock

Step 1: Set up the background

Let’s start the tutorial by creating a new document (Ctrl/Cmd + N) in Photoshop. Since I like printing my work, I will typically choose a large standard document size (like A4) and set the Resolution at 300 pixels/inch.

Once the new Photoshop document has been created, fill (Edit > Fill) the default Background layer with a dark blue (#052b4c).

I start my work from the background. If you do the same, I suggest that you don’t give too much importance to your starting colors because we can change them later on once we have completed our foreground work. The most important thing at the beginning is to achieve a concept—something interesting to represent. The beauty of Photoshop is that it allows you to change colors and other aspects of your work at any moment. The best moment to work with colors is when you have more elements to play with, near the end.

Let us start by creating a new layer (Crtl/Cmd + Shift + N). Next, set white (#ffffff) as your Foreground color and then select a large, soft brush tip with Hardness at 0% for our Brush Tool (B).

Simply click once at the center of the canvas to apply your brush stroke.

Step 2: Create a simple ellipse light effect

Since the scene is focused at the center of the canvas, we are going to create a light effect that will enhance all elements that will be placed there. Press Ctrl/Cmd + T to activate the Free Transform command and contract the light source so that it becomes an ellipse.

Then, remove the edges of the brush stroke using the Eraser Tool (E) (or use a layer mask, if you want).

Step 3: Create some clouds

We will now make some clouds. Make sure to have white (#ffffff) as foreground color and black (#000000) as your background color; you can press the D key to reset your foreground/background color to white/black and then press X to switch foreground and background colors.

Create a new layer and then go to Filter > Render > Clouds.

Activate the Free Transform command (Ctrl/Cmd+T) and enlarge the clouds layer by pulling on one of the corner transform controls.

Switch the layer’s blending mode to Screen to remove black parts of the clouds layer and also reduce the layer’s Opacity to around 30%.

To make the clouds more realistic, use the Eraser Tool (E) to remove some parts to make it look randomized. As always, use a large, soft brush with a Hardness set at 0%.

Just to recap our simple five-step clouds creation process:

1. Create a new layer and apply the clouds filter
2. Enlarge the layer
3. Switch the layer blending mode to screen
4. Reduce opacity
5. Remove unwanted parts

Repeat the same process to create other clouds. Try experimenting with different layer dimensions and opacity. This is what I ended up with:

Step 4: Select and prepare your subject

Choose a nice subject for your work. I chose this nice image of a dancer, but you can pick  any image that you like or have lying around.

Since we will create light effects to play with, I suggest you pick a dynamic moving subject such as a person jumping, an animal running, or a rock star jamming.

Once you’ve chosen your subject, copy and paste (Ctrl/Cmd + V) it into the canvas.

At this point, we have to modify the dancer. In particular, the aim is to increase the image contrast and to give the subject a grungier look. We can achieve both these results with a texture.

First, you must download the free sample of my Bleached Paper Texture set, open it in Photoshop, and paste it into our document.

Resize the texture with Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) so that it’s of the same size as our canvas.

Step 5: Apply a clipping mask on the texture layer

We want to apply our texture only to the subject. For this purpose, we can create a clipping mask. To do so, press Alt/Option and then click between the subject’s layer and the texture layer in the Layers Panel. A little arrow should appear and the texture layer’s name will move a bit to the right inside the Layers Panel indicating that you have added a clipping mask.

The clipping mask means that all the things we do in the texture layer will affect only the area delimited by dancer’s silhouette.

Switch the texture layer’s blending mode to Overlay and reduce the Opacity to 70%.

Step 6: Change the texture’s color

You can see how the texture details nicely interact with the human body. If you zoom in (press Z to activate the Zoom Tool, and then click on the canvas), you will notice that the grunge texture looks like veins. I want to play around with this idea/concept.

Let’s change the texture’s color. Press Ctrl/Cmd + U to open the Hue/Saturation dialog window. Check the Colorize option and move the hue slider to the area between purple and red.

Now create a mask on top of the texture layer by pressing the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers Panel.

Next, grab a soft, black brush for our Brush Tool (B) and remove textures from some parts of the body. The image below will show you suggested parts to paint on:

Step 7: Add a vivid light effect

It’s time to add a more brilliant and prominent light effect. Right-click on the subject’s layer in the Layers Panel and then choose Blending Options from the contextual menu.

Add an Outer Glow layer style. Increase the Size of the outer glow to around 200px and set Blend Mode to Color Dodge.

The light effect you see at the top is the result of the combination between the ellipse light effect we created at the beginning and the Outer Glow layer style.

If you want to change the orientation of this effect, simply move the elliptical lighting effect layer around.

Step 8: Create an abstract Photoshop brush

Here comes the fun part. There are plenty of ways to create light effects. In this tutorial, I’ll show you one of the simplest methods. We will make abstract fractals for our custom brushes and then we will use these brushes to add lights into our work.

In order to create nice abstract fractal effect, we will use the flame tool, which is a free online tool made by Peter Blaskovic. This tool is amazing!

Create you own flames and save them to your computer. Use default colors and once finished, just press Save. Save your flame as a JPG image.

Open one of the flames you just created in Photoshop. We are going to create a cool brush set with these.

Desaturate the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (Shift + Ctrl/Cmd + U).

Then invert the image by going to Image > Adjustments > Invert (Ctrl/Cmd + I). We invert the images because while you create Photoshop brushes, you have to consider that the white parts will be transparent and the blacker parts will represent the brush stroke. The parts that are in grayscale will therefore be the only ones saved as brushes.

Here is the result:

To save the brush, go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.

We have thus created the first brush of the set! Go ahead and create other brushes following the same process.

Step 9: Apply the custom abstract Photoshop brush

Create a new layer group (Ctrl/Cmd + G) and title it “light effect”. Set the group’s blending mode to Color Dodge. Create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N) inside the “light effect” group, set your Foreground color to white (#ffffff), and then click on the canvas to apply our custom abstract brush stroke.

Here is your light effect! Really simple, don’t you agree? I promised it would only take 10 minutes!

If you want a stronger light effect, duplicate the layer (Ctrl/Cmd + J) and experiment with the layer’s blending mode.

You can now use all the brushes of the brush set you created. Try to combine them in harmony with the body of the subject.

Also try this: Create a new layer, apply an abstract brush stroke, then rotate it with the Free Transform command (Ctrl/Cmd + T). You can also flip the layer (Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal or Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical). This can add variety to your abstract light effects.

Remember to create each brush stroke on a different layer so that you can move them separately to achieve a satisfactory composition.

Here is the result after I played around with all the brushes of my own set.

Step 10: Add more light effects

Still inside our “light effect” layer group, create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + J). This time we will use soft brushes to enhance some parts of the body. For example, take a look at the left hand of the dancer—it’s covered by some light beams. We can start there. Add more light where you think it’s necessary.

Step 11: Make energy particles

We will now create energy particles to detail our light effects. Create another layer inside the same group. Select the 16px Soft Mechanical tip.

Next, we will modify the Brushes options. If it’s not opened, toggle the Brushes Panel (Window > Brushes).

Check the Spacing option and increase its value to 400%.

Then, check the Shape Dynamic and set its options to the following values:

Finally, check Scattering and use the following suggested settings:

All that remains now is to paint over the canvas to create our energy particles. I suggest adding the energy particles on their own layers to compartmentalize our work. To increase the brightness and prominence of the energy particles, you can add an Outer Glow layer style to them.

Step 12: Final adjustments

Our work is almost complete. As I wrote at beginning of the tutorial, Photoshop allows us to play with colors at any moment.

Hue/Saturation adjustment layer

Let’s start by desaturating our image a bit. This is something I often do because I’ll apply a Gradient Map later (with its blending mode set at Overlay) that will increase color contrast.

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation and reduce Saturation to -40.

Note that you can also add adjustment layers by clicking on the Create new fill or layer adjustment button located at the bottom of the Layers Panel.

Curves adjustment layer

Increase the image’s contrast using a Curves adjustment layer. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. Create a curve as shown in the image below:

Gradient Map adjustment layer

Finally, add a Gradient Map adjustment layer. Set the color gradient so that it goes from purple (#6f156c) to yellow (#f9e600).

Afterwards, set the adjustment layer’s blending mode to Overlay and reduce its Opacity to 50%.

That’s it. We’re done!

Tutorial Summary

I showed you a variety of light effect techniques in this tutorial. We applied a simple light effect glow using a soft, white brush. Then we stepped it up a notch by adding an Outer Glow layer style on our subject. We created custom abstract light brushes as well as energy particles to enhance the look of our light effects. We applied a clipping mask to our subject for artistic purposes. To finish off our composition, we added some adjustment layers.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and learned a few tricks for adding light effects on your own work.

Here is the final result:

Download Source Files

• light_effects_custombrushes (ZIP, 26.1 MB)

Get Them Off Your Dog (Frontline, Flea Spray)

Panasonic: Wide Angle

Your Contribution Can End Child Labour

Act Now to save the Planet

See Both sides of the story

Canon DiGi

RCA Music

Welt Kompakt

Orion Telescopes

Stranger Radio Station

Comcast : High-Speed Internet

Cemex – Fast Drying Concrete

Movistar Print Ad

Dealer Track – Tools for a competitive advantage

Find More Easily (Google)

Samsung Plasma TV Ads

Green Peace

Snickers

Nivea

Sony Widescreen TV Ads

Detal Creative Ad

WMF knives: Cutting board

Firefox

Sony Xacti Water proof camera

Panasonic: Intelligent Face Detector

Beware of the H1N1 flu

FujiFilm Nobody can resist in front of a Finepix

Symantec Antivirus

Samsung washing Machine

Canon Cyber Shot

Routine sucks (Terra Travel)

You can lose more than your patience

Driving Safe

Super Absorbent Kitchen Towels

Don’t Let Wood Get Old

Lays advertising 2009

If you know some good ones then do let me know via comments.

Microsoft Windows 7 bootable USB utility

Microsoft released a small utility to create Windows 7 bootable USB/DVD called “Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool”. Though this tool is just 2.7 MB size , but still its very powerful enough to create bootable USB drives. You can get the windows 7 USB/DVD download Tool from the Microsoft page itself.

Let’s see how to Make a USB drive to Format/install windows 7.

• First Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
• When you are prompted to either save the file to disk or run it, choose Run.
• Follow the steps in the setup dialogs. You’ll have the option to specify where to install the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool and whether to create shortcuts on your Start Menu or Windows Desktop.

You need to be an administrator on the computer you are installing the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool on. The tool requires the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 or higher.

Using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Before you run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool, make sure that you have already purchased Windows 7 ISO download from Microsoft Store and have downloaded the Windows 7 ISO file to your hard drive. If you have purchased Windows 7 but have not yet downloaded the ISO file, you can download the file from your Microsoft Store Account.

To make a copy of your Windows 7 ISO file:

1. Click the Windows Start button, and click Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool in the All Programs list to open the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool.
2. In the Source File box, type the name and path of your Windows 7 ISO file, or click Browse and select the file in the Open dialog box.

3. If you want to create a boot able USB flash drive, select your USB device in the dropdown list and click Begin Copying or if you want to create a boot able DVD, click Begin burning.

4. If you choose to create a boot able USB then click on “Begin Copying” button. Now you’ll be prompted to format the USB device. In the dialog box Click Erase USB Device.

When your Windows 7 ISO file is copied onto your chosen media, you can install Windows 7 by navigating to the root of your DVD or USB flash drive and double-clicking Setup.exe.

My Opinion

You may make one copy of the ISO file on a disc, USB flash drive or other media in order to install the software on a computer. Once you have installed the software on a computer, the license terms that accompany the software apply to your use of the software and replace these terms. The license terms for Windows 7, once accepted, permit you to make one copy of the software as a back-up copy for re-installation on the licensed computer. If you do not delete the copy of the ISO file you made to install the software on your computer, then the copy of the ISO file constitutes your back-up copy. So now you can easily Install Windows 7 right from your Portable USB drive or DVD.

That might sound slightly automagical but actually it’s pretty straightforward, we already saw an example of this in the last post, where we used a constructor – so we’ll use this as our first example.

__construct

The constructor is a magic method that gets called when the object is instantiated. It is usually the first thing in the class declaration but it does not need to be, it a method like any other and can be declared anywhere in the class.

Constructors also inherit like any other method. So if we consider our previous inheritance example from the Introduction to OOP, we could add a constructor to the Animal class like this:

class Animal{
 
  public function __construct() {
    $this->created = time();
    $this->logfile_handle = fopen('/tmp/log.txt', 'w');
  }
 
}

animal.php

Now we can create a class which inherits from the Animal class – a Penguin! Without adding anything into the Penguin class, we can declare it and have it inherit from Animal, like this:

class Penguin extends Animal {
 
}
 
$tux = new Penguin;
echo $tux->created;

If we define a __construct method in the Penguin class, then Penguin objects will run that instead when they are instantiated. Since there isn’t one, PHP looks to the parent class definition for information and uses that. So we can override, or not, in our new class – very handy.

__destruct

Did you spot the file handle that was also part of the constructor? We don’t really want to leave things like that lying around when we finish using an object and so the __destruct method does the opposite of the constructor. It gets run when the object is destroyed, either expressly by us or when we’re not using it any more and PHP cleans it up for us. For the Animal, our __destruct method might look something like this:

class Animal{
 
  public function __construct() {
    $this->created = time();
    $this->logfile_handle = fopen('/tmp/log.txt', 'w');
  }
 
  public function __destruct() {
    fclose($this->logfile_handle);
  }
}

animal2.php

The destructor lets us close up any external resources that were being used by the object. In PHP since we have such short running scripts (and look out for greatly improved garbage collection in newer versions), often issues such as memory leaks aren’t a problem. However it’s good practice to clean up and will give you a more efficient application overall!

__get

This next magic method is a very neat little trick to use – it makes properties which actually don’t exist appear as if they do. Let’s take our little penguin:

class Penguin extends Animal {
 
  public function __construct($id) {
    $this->getPenguinFromDb($id);
  }
 
  public function getPenguinFromDb($id) {
    // elegant and robust database code goes here
  }
}

penguin1.php

Now if our penguin has the properties “name” and “age” after it is loaded, we’d be able to do:

$tux = new Penguin(3);
echo $tux->name . " is " . $tux->age . " years old\n";

However imagine something changed about the backend database or information provider, so instead of “name”, the property was called “username”. And imagine this is a complex application which refers to the “name” property in too many places for us to change. We can use the __get method to pretend that the “name” property still exists:

class Penguin extends Animal {
 
  public function __construct($id) {
    $this->getPenguinFromDb($id);
  }
 
  public function getPenguinFromDb($id) {
    // elegant and robust database code goes here
  }
 
  public function __get($field) {
    if($field == 'name') {
      return $this->username;
    }
}

penguin2.php

This technique isn’t really a good way to write whole systems, because it makes code hard to debug, but it is a very valuable tool. It can also be used to only load properties on demand or show calculated fields as properties, and a hundred other applications that I haven’t even thought of!

__set

So we updated all the calls to $this->name to return $this->username but what about when we want to set that value, perhaps we have an account screen where users can change their name? Help is at hand in the form of the __set method, and easiest to illustrate with an example.

class Penguin extends Animal {
 
  public function __construct($id) {
    $this->getPenguinFromDb($id);
  }
 
  public function getPenguinFromDb($id) {
    // elegant and robust database code goes here
  }
 
  public function __get($field) {
    if($field == 'name') {
      return $this->username;
    }
  }
 
  public function __set($field, $value) {
    if($field == 'name') {
      $this->username = $value;
    }
  }
}

penguin3.php

In this way we can falsify properties of objects, for any one of a number of uses. As I said, not a way to build a whole system, but a very useful trick to know.

__call

There are actually two methods which are similar enough that they don’t get their own title in this post! The first is the __call method, which gets called, if defined, when an undefined method is called on this object.

The second is __callStatic which behaves in exactly the same way but responds to undefined static method calls instead (only in new versions though, this was added in PHP 5.3).

Probably the most common thing I use __call for is polite error handling, and this is especially useful in library code where other people might need to be integrating with your methods.

So for example if a script had a Penguin object called $penguin and it contained $penguin->speak() ... the speak() method isn’t defined so under normal circumstances we’d see:

PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined method Penguin::speak() in ...

What we can do is add something to cope more nicely with this kind of failure than the PHP fatal error you see here, by declaring a method __call. For example:

class Animal {
}
class Penguin extends Animal {
 
  public function __construct($id) {
    $this->getPenguinFromDb($id);
  }
 
  public function getPenguinFromDb($id) {
    // elegant and robust database code goes here
  }
 
  public function __get($field) {
    if($field == 'name') {
      return $this->username;
    }
  }
 
  public function __set($field, $value) {
    if($field == 'name') {
      $this->username = $value;
    }
  }
 
  public function __call($method, $args) {
      echo "unknown method " . $method;
      return false;
  }
}

penguin4.php

This will catch the error and echo it. In a practical application it might be more appropriate to log a message, redirect a user, or throw an exception, depending on what you are working on – but the concept is the same.

Any misdirected method calls can be handled here however you need to, you can detect the name of the method and respond differently accordingly – for example you could handle method renaming in a similar way to how we handled the property renaming above.

__sleep

The __sleep() method is called when the object is serialised, and allows you to control what gets serialised. There are all sorts of applications for this, a good example is if an object contains some kind of pointer, for example a file handle or a reference to another object.

When the object is serialised and then unserialised then these types of references are useless since the target may no longer be present or valid. Therefore it is better to unset these before you store them.

__wakeup

This is the opposite of the __sleep() method and allows you to alter the behaviour of the unserialisation of the object. Used in tandem with __sleep(), this can be used to reinstate handles and object references which were removed when the object was serialised.

A good example application could be a database handle which gets unset when the item is serialised, and then reinstated by referring to the current configuration settings when the item is unserialised.

__clone

We looked at an example of using the clone keyword in the second part of my introduction to OOP in PHP, to make a copy of an object rather than have two variables pointing to the same actual data. By overriding this method in a class, we can affect what happens when the clone keyword is used on this object.

While this isn’t something we come across every day, a nice use case is to create a true singleton by adding a private access modifier to the method.

__toString

Definitely saving the best until last, the __toString method is a very handy addition to our toolkit. This method can be declared to override the behaviour of an object which is output as a string, for example when it is echoed.

For example if you wanted to just be able to echo an object in a template, you can use this method to control what that output would look like. Let’s look at our Penguin again:

class Penguin {
 
  public function __construct($name) {
      $this->species = 'Penguin';
      $this->name = $name;
  }
 
  public function __toString() {
      return $this->name . " (" . $this->species . ")\n";
  }
}

penguin5.php

With this in place, we can literally output the object by calling echo on it, like this:

$tux = new Penguin('tux');
echo $tux;

I don’t use this shortcut often but it’s useful to know that it is there.

More Magic Methods

There is a great reference on the php.net site itself, listing all the available magic methods (yes, there are more than these, I just picked the ones I actually use) so if you want to know what else is available then take the time to check this out.

Hopefully this has been a useful introduction to the main ones, leave a comment to let us know how you use these in your own projects!

There were only few in-depth tutorials or books about this subject. Which is why we would like to share some (hopefully useful) tips about how to create a simple icon set. This tutorial presents of course not everything you should know about how to master icon design, but we hope that it will help you, particularly if you have just started to learn, or want to learn more about icon design.

This article explains the process of designing a simple pencil icon, one of the icons of the icon set. The tutorial is very detailed and in-depth, so you will hopefully be able to follow each step without any problems.

Although we consider a basic example, the principles, conceptialization and techniques from this article can easily be applied to icon design in general. Although all tools we use in this guide are very simple and very easy to work with, your acquaintance with Adobe Illustrator is still requisite.

So how do we start? Usually before starting, we have to gather some pencil pictures on the Web and pick up the details and traits out of those pictures and mix them all to create a style for some fresh pencil icon. We always start with a hand-drawn sketch.

1. Characteristics of a pencil icon

Drawing an icon means to draw the most typical characters of an object so that it can capture the icon’s action or represent the concept and nuance.
As you might know, there are generally three kinds of pencils to select from:

1. Prism-shaped body with a shiny glaze-coated end.
2. Prism-shaped body with an eraser secured to the pencil body by a bright white metal ring.
3. Cylinder-shaped body without an eraser.

We choose the second kind for the icon design because it has all necessary elements, making it easier for the viewer to recognize the image. After trying to sketch some upon the second kind, this is the sample sketch that matches the style of the set that we have in mind.
Our favorite drawing tools are Copic Markers with 10%, 30%, 50% gray tones and a ballpoint pen. Some important things that should be followed as working on this icon:

• When an icon is designed in a large size, you need to pay close attention to details, and make sure that the two-point perspective is used. But in this article, because the icon is to be made and optimized in smaller sizes (64×64px and 48×48px), its concept should be as simple as possible, and the icon should be illustrated in one-point perspective.
• Light used in the icon must be harmonized.
• Perspective used for the icon must be identical in the iconset, making all the icons look like being in a family.
• Style should be a bit more manly-looking.
• Decisive color is green.
• Since the icon is to be saved in an EPS8 file, only gradient is used and all the paths must be connected (no open paths). It is also important to note that there is no transparent effect and no raster image invovled.

Okay, let’s get to the main part!

2. Sketches:

In our icon design sketches always come first.

We are going to scan these sketches into Illustrator.

3. Basic outline:

3.1. The pencil body

1. Create a 64 x 64px document. Drag the image (the scanned sketch) into the artboard of the new document. Go to the Transparency palette and set the image’s opacity to 50. Lock this layer and save the document. Create a new layer and start to make outlines on it.
2. Create a rounded rectangle path using the Rounded Rectangle tool and then click on the artboard to set the Corner Radius value to 10px. Click OK.





3. Choose the Selection tool (V) and click on an edge of the rounded rectangle path and drag it over and make it fit tightly on the sketched image like the picture below.
   • Select the round rectangle and set their color to none.
   • The eraser looks smaller than the body, so it needs to be reformed. There may be several ways to redraw the eraser like using the Pen tool (P) but from my experience they didn’t give good results.
4. Select the rounded rectangle path. Double-click on the Scale tool and check Uniform in the Scale dialog box. Set the scale value at 96%. Check Copy to create a replica as shown in the picture below.
5. Choose the Rectangle tool and draw a new rectangle at the position of the eraser and over the rounded rectangle path.
6. Choose the Add Anchor Point tool (+) and click on the central point of the rectangle path (drawn in step 5) to add one more anchor point. Next, select the Delete Anchor Point tool (-) and delete 2 anchor points.
7. Choose the Ellipse tool and draw an ellipse as shown below:
8. Select the larger rounded rectangle path and the ellipse path. Go to the Pathfinder palette and click the Divide icon. A new group appears in the Layer palette. Any divided path will belong to this group.
9. Go to the Layer palette and select two paths located below the new group, press Command/Ctrl + G to put them into a group and lock this group. Do that to make it easier to delete unused paths in step
10. Ungroup the group with divided paths (in step by selecting the group and choosing the Ungroup command from the right-click menu.
11. Delete unused paths until the result is achieved as below.

3.2. The metal ring

Just like the steps done with the eraser, for this path we’ll use a bigger ellipse and divide the pencil body path to detach the metal ring from the body.

The shape of pencil now has been taken very basically. I think we can go into its details from this step on. What we have to do is cleaning up the pencil.

4. Details:

Create the outlines for a pencil with sharpened end by using the Rounded Rectangle tool and the Pathfinder palette. All we have to do with this path is make the pencil body in a prism shape and look being already sharpened.

1. Select the Rounded Rectangle tool and draw a new rounded rectangle path with 4pt corner radius (like in step 2B).
2. Make a duplicate of this rounded rectangle path by pressing “Copy and Paste in front” commands (Command/Ctrl + F )
3. Move the duplicate path to the right.
4. Select both rounded rectangle paths and the body path, and then divide them using the Divide option in the Pathfinder palette.
5. Select the group with divided paths and ungroup it, and then delete unused paths. The result should be like this:
6. Continue using the Rounded Rectangle tool to draw another rounded rectangle path, and then use the Divide option to cut the path in the middle of the pencil body to form a clear prism. Next, ungroup and unlock all the paths in Layer 2, and then change their names. See the result below.

5. Styling the Pencil:

And now we are going to give the icon some charm. The steps include:

5.1. Adding gradient

1. Select all the paths and select the Gradient tool, and then go to the Swatches palette and choose a radial black-gray-white gradient.
2. Select each path and drag the Gradient tool (G) across each of them until you see the result like the picture below:
3. Select all the paths and set their stroke weight to zero. The purpose is to preview the pencil in general.Well, light depicted in the pencil body looks fine, but the metal ring and the sharpened end need to be adjusted a bit.
4. Change the gradient type of this path to linear to create a new gradient as shown in the picture below. Hoping you could create the gradient like mine. In case you couldn’t make it yourself, just download the attached source file.
5. The metal ring path should embrace the eraser tightly. To do this, use the Add Anchor Point tool (+) and add 4 more anchor points to the two ends of the metal ring path, and then delete 2 corner points. The result look like this:>
6. The metal ring path also needs to be a little thicker. The easiest way is use the Offset Path command. Select the path and then go to Object>Path>Offset Path. In the Offset Path dialog box, set the offset value to -1pt or less. You may check Preview to see the result and hit OK.Notes:
   • Use the Offset path to make a duplicate over the metal ring path; change the gradient of the metal ring path (locating below the duplicate) to give depth.
   • Whenever the Offset path is used, the default name of the duplicate is “path”.
   • If the offset value is minus (-), the duplicate will stay upper.
7. Apply the radial black-gray-white to the metal ring path, press G and drag the Gradient tool across the path until you get the result like the picture below:
   Okay, the metal ring looks acceptable to the eye. Now let’s mess with the sharpened end or the pencil nib path.
8. Scale the pencil nib path so that it adjoins with the pencil body.
9. Like in the sketch, the pencil nib path here needs a highlight piece located right at its center, making up its shape. Before doing this, remember that the icon is to be saved in EPS8 format and there’s no usage of effect, no blending mode or opacity adjustment but only paths or the blendshape. To make it simpler, use the Pen tool and draw a path over the pencil nib path.
10. Change the direction and angle of the gradient until the pencil nib is taken shape properly.
11. Draw the pencil lead using the Pen tool.
12. Give a highlight piece to the eraser using the Pen tool and change the angle of the gradient to suggest the eraser shape.
13. Use the Offset path command to make a duplicate of the eraser path. Change the gradient tone of the eraser path to make its contour look sharper.

5.2. Tweaking the color

In this stage, we’ll put each element of the pencil into each separate group (the body, the eraser, and the sharpened end).

1. Select the pencil body paths (including 3 paths). Go to Edit > Adjust Color Balance, check Preview and Convert in the Adjust dialog box, and then switch to RGB mode.
2. Drag the slider to change the Red/Green/Blue values (to whatever color you like).
3. Select the eraser and do the same Step 2.
4. Select the sharpened end and change its color (do dittos).The pencil now looks flatter than it was initially. That’s because the gradient will lose the black color after adjusting the color balance. What we’re going to do next is go back to the three elements of the pencil and add the black color to their gradient so that the shapes of the elements will display clearer.
5. Grab the gradient slider and move the main color closer to the white. In the Color palette, drag that color down to the Gradient palette. Select the color just dragged (by clicking the gradient slider) and change its value to 0-0-0 (make sure the color mode is RGB). You may use the Color palette to change the gradient color.

6. Deeper details and style matching

After everything basic is done, switch to Pixel Preview mode from the View menu to see if the pixelation problem occurred.

We are almost done. Yet, as you see, the pencil lead looks very sharp-pointed, giving an unsafe feel. So we got to change that conical point to a frustum of a pyramid. Also, we need to add some extra paths to the pencil body as highlight pieces (using the Offset Path command). This is necessary because the outer housing of the pencil is a very shiny coating.

And the result is:

After the icon is rotated at 45-degree angle:

Well, one more thing, the pencil still looks so dark that can’t match the styleweI want to have, so we’ll make a change to its color. Just add some detail to the metal ring path by (1) duplicating the path and scale the duplicate a little bit, and then (2) make another duplicate and drag the gradient over it to make the icon more realistic.

Note: make sure both “Snap to Pixel” and “Snap to Point” have been checked after Pixel Preview mode is used.

The final outcome:

Look at the final outcome. While the light direction comes from above, the lower part of the pencil body is lighter than the upper part. Yes, it’s the reflection of light.
Many assume that it’s tough to draw icons with Illustrator due to difficulty in representing color and light. If you have a good sense of color you can change the gradient color and tone using the Color palette.

Anyway with Photoshop, you could do the following way:

1. Export your vector to a PNG, then open it in Photoshop.
   Change the color and light level of the icon image by using Curves or Color Balance or Auto Levels (from Image menu > Adjustments), or using other techniques you knew in Photoshop. After editing, save the image file.
2. Drag the edited image into Illustrator, then use the Eyedroper tool to pick up three main values of color – brightness, medium and darkness, and after every pick-up, drag the color into the Swatches palette to save.
3. Drag your chosen color into the Gradient palette to make your own nice gradients, then applied to your icon.
   I used to do that way for a while and now I’ve owned a useful library of gradients, which I always use to style my icon sets.

Common Mistakes

Let us discuss some mistakes which are frequently occur when it comes to icon design using the example above.

• Create reflection and highlights in the icon by drawing a new path over the original path and add the while or black to it, then changing its opacity.
  This way will make the object color to be the silver gray, losing the clearness as it was, though it still can achieve glossiness.
• Use gaudy models of pencil and round cylinder shape to easily take shape of the pencil icon with only one gradient.
  But drawing icons is drawing anything most familiar and typical, and draw objects that best capture the icon’s action or gesture. A round-shaped pencil icon hardly can come with sharp corners and clear highlights.
• Rely on a prism-shaping gradient by using a path to demonstrate the pencil body and then apply the gradient that makes an object look like a prism shape to the path.
  This may be an easy way but very difficult to edit, and the gradient tends to be askew.
• Use the blendshape to cast shadow in EPS8 and the shadow changes from white to black without transparency.
  When the shadow casts on a background with color other than white, a white contour will appear.

Design comparisions

These are some typical designs we’d like to bring in and classify them upon some good and weak points.
The final result above shows the pencil icons designed in one-point perspective. This is a perfect design that obtains all necessary components: lighting, shadow, color and composition, and especially, this design can be scaled down to any size without pixelation problem.

Figure 1 shows the pencil icons designed in two-point perspective. This design depicts good lighting, acceptable shadow and nice color, and does not encounter the pixilation problem. Yes, this design looks nice and cool. However, the composition and shape of the pencils may not be recognizable immediately to viewers, resulting in the violation of the main principle of icon design.

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows the folder icons designed in two-point perspective. The design looks nearly perfect with nice concept, a complete and proper composition. It’s also a good design as it depicts accurately the light direction that comes from above and casts a nice shadow, and the light reflection on the folder object is wonderful. Yet, pixelation problem occurs on the upper edges of the folders, causing the icon in 24×24px to lose sharpness.

Figure 2

Conclusion

There are many different approaches to icon design, some use 3D application, others use Firework or Photoshop, but the goal in designing icons is the same, whatever tools we use. We need to keep the consistency through every icon in the set, and maintain recognization and simplicity. As we said in the beginning of this article, these are just some basic steps and principles of creating a beautiful and crisp icon. We hope you enjoy this tutorial.

by M. Tran

We started this site with the intention of serving our customers, web developing enthusiasts, internet addicts, etc with our own articles and tutorials. But later, we have decide to compile the famous posts on the web, since the hand made tutorials are time consuming and with the interest of providing the visitors with a maximum satisfaction regardless of the author or source.