Best way to create an application icon

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What is the best way to create an icon for an application?

From Visual Studio or maybe some another program.

I create an icon in Visual Studio and use it as application icon, but when I put the icon shortcut on the desktop there is only some gray icon. Is this maybe because of icon dimensions or something else?

Zigmund answered 9/1, 2011 at 12:20 Comment(2)

I don't agree with closing this question. The creation of an icon for your application isn't strictly a programming question but it is very closely associated and ought to be trivial. However, I also find the path to acheiving this to be rather unclear and I always need to remind myself how to acheive it properly each time I need to do it. – Spoil 9/1, 2011 at 12:29

It depends on what "creating an icon" refers to: the association of an icon with the application binaries, or the design process of the icon itself. I didn't vote to close but I consider the latter off-topic. – Chewink 9/1, 2011 at 12:31

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You simply can't beat IcoFX for the price and feature set.
It's one of my favorite programs, and it makes icon design incredibly easy. If you've been using MS Paint or the icon editor built into Visual Studio, you owe it to yourself to download IcoFX and give it a try.

Adobe Photoshop is the 300 pound gorilla here, but I think everyone who knows (or is willing to learn) how to use Photoshop already knows that.

But really, it might be the case that we developers are fooling ourselves if we think we're icon designers. Aside from a few specialized cases where you can't find the icon you need, you owe it to your users to use an existing icon library. Seriously, even with the best tools, could you design these? I didn't think so.

Globigerina answered 9/1, 2011 at 12:35 Comment(2)

This program looks interesting :) – Zigmund 9/1, 2011 at 12:37

I have a problem with designing icon because my mind has become accustomed to programming. – Zigmund 9/1, 2011 at 13:1

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The best image programs are the Adobe products. However, Paint.NET is a good free tool (see Create .ico files with Paint.NET).

In the project properties application tab in the Resources grouping, add the icon file to the Icon and Manifest section.

Silicon answered 9/1, 2011 at 12:26 Comment(1)

Thanks @bigb the article had it but it I should have added this for clarity. – Silicon 9/1, 2011 at 12:38

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If you have no artistic skills, you should look at Iconfu. You can simply select a base icon and apply custom styles and colors to the icon.

Zenaidazenana answered 1/10, 2017 at 9:15 Comment(0)

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Here in our office, my co-worker uses Microangelo Icon Editor. He is a screen designer, so I assume he knows what he is doing.

Being a programmer, I would never ever dare to create icons on my own. I do not have the graphical skills. Usually I rely on third-party libraries like Icon Experience.

Tanker answered 9/1, 2011 at 12:30 Comment(0)

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See Make an ICO file in 30 seconds (YouTube video) and http://converticon.com/.

Kampong answered 9/1, 2011 at 12:31 Comment(2)

deprecated project. – Fionafionna 9/1, 2020 at 19:43

link no longer valid - site doesn't exist anymore. – Sabu 21/2, 2022 at 0:53

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If you like using Photoshop, there are many free icon export tools available, which is what I use personally

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