Icon Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

We [heart] Icons really does [heart] icons

by Aron Trimble (May 9th, 2009)

One of the most common ways to customize your tried-and-true desktop is by changing the wallpaper. While easy and effective, the wallpaper switcheroo is not the only trick up the sleeves of the customizers among us. For some, the most rewarding customization results from replacing icons. There are ...

Learn how to draw a Mac network node sphere with this tutorial

by Robert Palmer (Jan 5th, 2009)

If you've always wondered how to draw a "ball of nodes" as featured in a variety of Mac OS X icons, wonder no more: Mike Rundle of flyosity.com has written a tutorial to show you how using Photoshop. Rundle discusses "spheric realism," the process of understanding the materials, reflectivity, and ...

What's in an icon?

by Mike Schramm (Dec 5th, 2008)

Gedeon Maheux has an post about how an icon is designed from the aptly-named Iconfactory (specifically the Frenzic app icon), and while I don't have any design skills to speak of at all, it's an interesting look into how those little snippets of art are made. Icons are increasingly important, ...

Apple's System Preference icon goes "Green"

by Cory Bohon (Oct 21st, 2008)

With the introduction of EPEAT Gold rated MacBooks and MacBook Pros last week, Apple has definitely been warming up to the environmental movement lately. So, it was only fitting that they would change a small part of System Preferences to reflect the EPEAT rating. That's right, the Energy Saver ...

Apple's worst logo ever?

by Dave Caolo (Jun 11th, 2008)

I'm eager to test out Apple's upcoming MobileMe service, the .Mac replacement scheduled to launch in a few weeks. Unfortunately for many, my enthusiasm is matched by disdain for the MobileMe logo. Gawker says "...it should be on a package of Japanese soap." Paul Thurrott notices a similarity between ...

CandyBar 3 available now

by Christina Warren (Nov 27th, 2007)

This is going to sound sad, but the one application that I have missed the most in upgrading to Leopard is CandyBar 2. I've always been something of a customization addict, and being able to take advantage of some of the beautiful icons that artists have made over the years to make OS X look its ...

IconGrabber: easy icon extraction

by Mat Lu (Nov 27th, 2007)

This one is a little bit of inside (blogging) baseball, but I know a lot of our readers blog themselves and so might find this tip handy. Ankur Kothari (whose Quicksilver customizations we've mentioned before) has cooked up an excellent little Quicksilver plugin called IconGrabber that does exactly ...

TUAW Tutorial: Custom Stack Drawer icons

by Mat Lu (Nov 16th, 2007)

Many folks commented on our recent post about adding those gorgeous drawer icons to your Stacks. As great as the originals are, however, a lot of you also wanted to know how to customize them. Fortunately, the original author was kind enough to make the blank drawer PNG available, so in this ...

Refresh Finder is ready to refresh Leopard's Finder, too

by Mike Schramm (Nov 13th, 2007)

Reader Fredrik L sends word (thanks!) that Samuel Svensson is back from India, and that means his little mini-application, Refresh Finder, has been updated and is Leopard-ready. There's not much more to say about this one-- you can probably guess what Refresh Finder does from its name, and while ...

Use (almost) Leopard's SysPref icon

by Mike Schramm (Jul 28th, 2007)

If you're at all like me, you didn't wait for too long after the last Stevenote to scour the Internet for that "blades of grass" Leopard wallpaper, just so you too could pretend it was October already and you were using 10.5. Those of you out there (I have no idea how many of you there are-- we're ...

iConiCal: Keep iCal's icon current

by David Chartier (Jul 5th, 2007)

After my minor gripe that the iPhone's calendar app displays the proper date on its icon, even though Mac OS X's still doesn't, a few readers directed me towards iConiCal. Basically, all iConiCal does is start up up iCal to update its icon, then it quits both iCal and itself so you don't have extra ...

Import your icons into Photoshop

by Mat Lu (Jun 21st, 2007)

If you've ever wanted to edit or customize an Application icon in Photoshop, creativebits has a nice tutorial that shows how easy it is to import your icons into Photoshop as a PSD file. Basically, the trick is to open the application's icon in Preview (as was pointed out in the comments, you can ...

Safari 3 sports updated icon

by Erica Sadun (Jun 13th, 2007)

Eagle-eyed TUAW reader Scott Reeves tipped us off to the newly updated Safari 3 icon. The icon, which appears here on the left, seems to have lost its degree notches that are quite prominent along the bottom right of the Safari 2 icon. In addition, the background map is far clearer with improved ...

Dock Dodger - easily hide running apps from the Dock

by David Chartier (Apr 11th, 2007)

We've found easy methods for hiding the icons of running apps in the Dock, but you typically have to get your hands dirty with editing files inside the app package itself. For users who prefer a more simple drag and drop operation, there's always Dock Dodger. From the same FoggyNoggin Software ...

Hide an Icon in the Dock

by Mat Lu (Feb 18th, 2007)

The über-Mac geeks over at mac geekery answer a reader question I have often wondered about myself: is it possible to hide an application's icon so it does not appear in your Dock, even though the application is running? And the answer is yes, if you're up for a little bit of relatively easy ...