Icon design is a fun field to get involved in. It requires illustrative skills, which most of the tutorials on VECTORTUTS are dedicated to teaching. Now if your looking to refine your skills with icon design specific tutorials, we have a list of the top ten icon design tutorials on the site. Keep in mind we'll be publishing more in the future as well, as this is an important and popular design topic.
Icon Design Tutorials
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How to Design a Set of Multicolored Buddy Icons
In this Illustrator tutorial, I'll show you how to create a set of multicolored buddy icons. This tutorial uses some basic shapes, gradients, Feather, and Illustrator's powerful Live Color feature. These techniques are easily translated into other designs and illustrations.
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Create An Aperture Style Camera Lens Icon
Let's look at how to create a detailed camera lens similar to the one used as the logo for Apple's Aperture photo-editing software. A camera lens is good for a software icon, logo, or just as a graphic for use in any design. Although, the image appears detailed, the process of creating it involves little more than simply layering objects with different fills and gradients to give a three-dimensional illusion.
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Make a Handy 3D Vector Calendar Icon
Learn to make a handy calendar icon to use on your blog, website, or print projects. We'll use Illustrators Path and 3D tools to create this design. Also, a simple page curl effect will be demonstrated as well. Let's jump into this tutorial.
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How to Create a Juicy RSS Feed Icon
Let's learn how to make a unique RSS feed icon. This tutorial requires a familiarity with Adobe Illustrator's basic tools as we'll use the gradient mesh tool and make light use of Illustrators mapping feature.
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How to Create a Transparent Battery Icon
Learn to create a detailed icon of a battery similar to the one used for the iPhone touch. The battery "fuel" color can be changed as well as the "fuel" level, allowing the icon to be used to create a battery or power meter for applications, or simply as a graphic in any type of design.
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Create a Vector Film Slate Icon
In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create a vector film slate icon. The tutorial uses some basic shapes, some gradients, and even a blend. Moreover, you can easily customize this tutorial with your own logo or typography.
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Design a Vector Audio Speaker Icon In Illustrator
In this intermediate tutorial, I'll show you how to create a vector speaker icon. When you break down the elements you'll find it fairly easy. We'll be using some ellipses with gradients, the Grid Tool, and the Mesh Tool to create this icon design.
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Create a Vector Lock Icon Design
In the following tutorial, you'll learn how to create a lock icon with some effects, opacity masks, gradients, and simple shapes in Illustrator. Many of these techniques can be applied easily to other icon designs.
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Create a Detailed Camera with Photo Icon
We will show the intermediate Adobe Illustrator artist how to make a sleek web 2.0 style icon in this tutorial. You should have a basic understanding of Adobe Illustrator tools before you begin this tutorial, as the tutorial moves at a rapid pace.
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Illustrate a Fun Magnify Zoom Icon
Let's create a unique Magnifying Glass shown enlarging a selection of text. We'll work primarily with the pathfinder and basic shape tools to cut out our shapes for this illustration, though the pen tool will also be used. We color the elements along the way using various gradients.
