A look back at some of our historical Desktop Icon projects

Before the advent of mobile devices a desktop icon was either a Windows application icon or a Mac application icon, both being used as graphical short-cuts to launch a software application or utility.

Nowadays we have a plethora of mobile devices, tablets and other niche devices to consider and although any ‘computer’ home screen is generally termed the ‘desktop’, I am not sure how relevant the term is any more, even if you do still use a desktop-based computer.

For me, the term is fairly synonymous with a Windows application icon. When a client asks for a desktop icon, 99% of the time this is what they are after. To be Windows 7 or 8 compliant this means at least 256, 48, 32 & 16 pixel versions in 32bit and 8bit colour depths, all rendered into a single ICO file.

Below are examples of some of the desktop icons we have created over the years. Almost all of these have been for Windows platforms, although a few were also used as the basis for web icons and mobile app variants as well. Putting this little list together makes me realise how diverse our customer base has been over the years; it always keeps things interesting.

A big smug grin for whoever guesses the oldest one here. Now be kind, some of these icon designs are really quite old!

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