Icon Library

Iconshock wanted to give the maximum gift any icon lover can have. We wanted to give to our readers, the ultimate, definitive, mega, super, hyper, ultra, mega, … you get the point…

Here it is ladies and gentlemen. No more B.S. The best Icons of 2009. There are some icons of 2008, but who cares if they’re good? Enjoy.

1. Iconshock Folders
Iconshock

The concept behind the design of these is very original; you have a pretty good idea of the contents of each folder without any extra graphics outside the actual envelope. One of the best folder icons out there.

2. Lovely Website Pack 2
Lazy Crazy

These icons didn’t go for the easy way and chose the difficult top view, that at the end is what makes them unique.

3. Tools
Dave Mottram

Clean and clear as all Icons should be.

4. Fat
Harwenzhang

The obesity concept is taken way to the edge without sacrificing the identity of the elements. A shame there are so few icons on this set.

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A Photoshop action is a series of tasks you can define and apply to a single image or a series of images to increase your productivity and avoid the hassle of doing the same thing over and over again.

For example, let’s say you usually resize, then tweak the levels, and then apply a blur filter to your family trip photos. You can create an action with those three steps, so you can apply it to all of your photos at once instead of repeating the same clicks in every photo. On the latest versions of Photoshop, you can even record tasks as varied as painting tools. This compilation list made by Henry Jones for Web Design Ledger is sure worth a peek.

Click on image to check some cool Photoshop actions.

Be it Minimal, Flash or just HTML… Animations or plain typography. Be it because of their aesthetics, or because of their content. From minimal interfaces to baroque jaw dropping awesomeness, Iconshock has decided to follow up our infamous 100’s lists and begin this year with the ultimate roundup. These are the websites we can’t live without. Enjoy. The best 100 websites of 2009 by Iconshock. Remember, they are listed in no particular order.

1. Comcast Town

Ok we begin our countdown with one of the most baroque designs in the list. The site is a whole  town similar to “second life” with games, and other activities. Genius way to market brands. You can spend hours in here.

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Jacob Cass, one of the best logo designers in today’s design industry, has listed the ultimate, most complete list of resources for anything you have to know about logos. In here you will find tutorials, galleries, theory articles and much much, more. Complement this list with our post 100 best logo Tutorials and you’ll become a logo Jedi. Watch it with that lightsaber!

Everything you need to be a logo guru is just one click away. Click on image to access.

Sometimes subtle details are the difference between an amateur design and pro work. It’s incredible how tiny, almost invisible touches make a whole difference in the way a design is perceived. In this article by Henry Jones for “Web Design Ledger”, he shows us how a 1px line can add depth and separation to your images in a web layout.

Click on image to access the full article.

Google’s recent announcement of their bail out from China brings to the world’s attention, (yet again) the hardship and sometimes irrationality of Hu Jintao’s government censorship. This info graphic by our dear friends of “information is beautiful” gives us a lot to think about.

Click on image to see what is China imposing censorship online.

Php is a must have tool in every web designer’s arsenal. It’s an open source scripting language that can be embedded directly in the HTML, giving web pages dynamic properties and incredible versatility.

The “Web and Designers” blog has posted an entire 10 lesson mini course on php for very easy to follow and perfect if you are starting in design or are a web enthusiast.

Click on image to access first lesson.

This is a easy to read, factual list made by Chris Spooner for “line 25” blog featuring the most obvious, counterproductive, and yet common usability mistakes in web design. You won’t last 10 minutes reading this post, but the tips will improve your designs for all your career.

Click on image to read the ten point list.

January is always the month of reviews and roundups. Henry Jones made this cool list for “Web Design Ledger”, were he shows us 40 incredible logos designed only with type. Great inspirations for designers and also for entrepreneurs looking for ideas to refresh your brand.

Click on image to see complete list.

As you might know, we at Iconshock post one handpicked icon set from around the world DAILY. Yes, you read it well, we do it at a daily basis, because we want to turn the blog into a comprehensive catalogue of the best icon work from top artists around the net.

But early on in our quest, a problem arose; every time I posted a Mac icon, the complains just poured and almost everybody was disappointed. Everyone but Mac users of course. I know that Mac fans are less than Pc users… But that doesn’t mean that PC users can’t own the wonderful artistry of Mac icons. A very kind blog reader called “Southerner” left a comment some time ago with useful step by step info that I wanted to show here and turn into this tutorial, so you guys can enjoy the icons we post, regardless of their format. So…here we go!

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Our intention here at Iconshock is to gather a designing and developer community around useful resources and information. We have talked before about the importance of wireframing in web design, and we even found some innovative DIY tools to do the job.

In this article I found at the Graphic Rating blog, they make a thorough review of Flairbuilder, an interesting app that seems to do the job.

Click on image to access full article.

I just found this incredible article on the excellent Vandelay Design blog, where they round up 35 tutorials, from beginner to advanced, of one of the most talked about and discussed web development tools now days; Adobe Air.

Click on image to access full article.

“Web design Ledger” is one of the most renown and visited design blogs in the net. and today I wanted to post a list of their most poplar articles of last year. In this list you can find anything from icons, to textures, to some insight on the possible design trends of 2010. Worth your visit.

Click on image to check out WDL’s most popular post’s

Javascript is becoming indispensable for web developers and designers. Its reliability is incredible, and Its fast loading times are unrivaled. I think that you can replace a lot of flash elements with success if you know how to handle javascript. To sum to the list of incredible jquery plug ins, I wanted to post today this article Casper made for Dzinepress with the definitive list of tutorials for Java script.

Click on image to check the best 40 javascript tutorials.

Either if you are a Photoshop professional, an image editing enthusiast, or a amateur photographer, this post will really make your day. Media Militia made the ultimate roundup of the most effective background removal techniques out there. Removing a subject from it’s background is the single, most common task in digital design today, and this post can certainly be a bible for it. This is a real gem.

Click on image to learn how to remove the background from any image.