JOURNAL: Make your own Facebook, Twitter, RSS, Email and YouTube Icons

Posted on Jun 10, 2011

Well this was just too much fun!

I decided to create my own Facebook, Twitter, Rss, Email and YouTube icons….and as you can see here (hover over it and click to enlarge), I did it in my sketchbook with lightly gessoed pages over book text, used my trusty brush ink pen and my favorite watermedia, gouache. I doodled while over at my daughter’s for dinner, added a few layers and then declared the project done. I went home and scanned them, resized them, added them to my website and voila!

HERE’S HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN ICONS:

Print out the original icons from online. They’re everywhere so you shouldn’t have problem finding them.

Here’s a set of them to get you started….there are several varieties of each out there, surprising as that may be.

Start with a 2″ to 4″ square (rounded edge square) drawing and be precise, be loose, or anywhere inbetween, just make it your own style. Fill in the color with your media of choice, and that’s it really.

Next, you want to scan it, or perhaps take a really clear close up photo. Once you have that, open it in an image editor – that will be Photoshop for most of you, but for those of you without Photoshop, try this fab online image editor, so user friendly and a great resource. http://www.picnik.com/

Since I scanned all of my icons on the same page, I had to make several copies of the page, then cropped just ONE icon, named it, then resized it, and saved it. You’ll do that with each one.

Rename the smaller ones “myfacebookicon-sm” or something like that. Mine are resized to about 60px square just perfect for adding to my website. Then just add them to your site….or if you don’t know how (shameless I know) but I’m a web designer, so you could hire me to help you out. (smile)

You can see I had trouble with the YouTube icon, so the third try was the charm with that one. Go ahead, your turn to make your own!

Take a peek over to the top in right sidebar under “I INVITE YOU TO FOLLOW MY ART” …..see them? : )

Here’s an image (without live links) of how mine turned out:

Make your own facebook, twitter, rss, email and youtube icons - by artist joaniespringer

And now, since this IS one of my Haiku Art Journa posts, here’s my little haiku to go with this post:

“Made my own icons
how much more fun could it be
here they are, you see?”

Please share with me what you come up with and come back and comment, and leave me
the url to our own icons as I’d love to come take a look. Blessings!

Have a blessed day,

Joanie

In case you are wondering, here’s a bit about my Haiku Art Journal.