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Five reasons to design your own icons for your web site
Some great reasons to design your own icons instead of using free icon sets.
Not all sites need icons, but for those that do (especially web applications), it is relatively easy and convenient to find free icons on the net. However, using free icons is not necessarily the best practice in web design. For one thing, you can't always be sure of the source when taking free designs off the web, creating the potential for copyright issues to arise in the future. Whilst many free icon sites are good and ethical, many are not, and it can be hard to tell the difference.
There are a whole bunch of other reasons too, such as...
1. An opportunity to be creative
Using free icons takes away the opportunity for you to be creative and give your web site some individual character. Whether you design the icons yourself, or give some input to professional icon designers, there is the real opportunity here for you to tailor your icon design to meet the needs of your web site and what it represents.
A lack of bespoke design can look generic and not have that personal touch, which is especially off putting, as websites can often be the first point of contact for queries regarding the business or service you supply.
2. Do they fit in with your look?
You want your icons to match the colour scheme or at least complement the look and theme of your website. Getting free icons off the internet often leaves you with a lack of choice and having to settle for second best. There is also the issue of mismatched fonts, which can leave your site looking disorganised. Plus even the most comprehensive icon set will often not meet the needs of your site or web app entirely.
3. Expanding the way you use icons
Resizing icons is never a good idea, as it's easy to end up with a patch of fuzz, instead of something sharp and clear. This can be a problem with free icon sets, which often only come in one fixed size. One of the benefits of designing your own icons, or having them professionally designed, is that it allows you to have access to high quality and scalable image files of all your icons, meaning you can increase or decrease the size as you wish. You don't have to limit your icons to your site, after all. You can extend them to literature and even the profile image or avatar for social networking sites and micro-blogging.
4. Ownership
Creating icons from scratch allows you to take them apart and alter them to suit different versions of your site. You may have one set of icons for the UK version of your site, and a slightly tweaked version to suit an American version, for example. This is just one of the perks of actually owning your icons.
Designing your own icons is not that difficult a process. Think about what you want on your site. You may have got inspiration from other sites or applications you have seen. By mind mapping your ideas with a designer, you can pick things you like and tailor them to create a unique set of designs of your own.
5. Long-term solutions
Using free icons from online sources can be a convenient and temporary solution, but in the long term it can strip away the identity and character of your site. Also bear in mind that free icon sets, especially the better ones, are often used by many different sites -- and potentially your competitors! The initial process does not have to be technical at all, and can range from a mood board of magazine cut outs to some scribbles in a notebook.
Of course, free icons are great for getting inspiration, roughing out ideas or for using as place-holders in a design until you can get your own custom icons for your site. But for great presentation and branding, custom designed icons are the only real way to go.
[Photo courtest of everydaylifemodern]
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