Icon-A-Day, Icon #3, The Text File

Simple but imporatnt, everyone is going to see this one.

Published on January 10, 2005 By mormegil In Icons

Icon 03 (Text File) Today I am going to cheese out a bit. I am kind of short on time, so today we will knock out another simple icon; the Text File. The Text File icon is actually very important as its look tends to be carried over into a lot of other files and folders. We shall see this as we continue on through the rest of the pack. So with that, lets get started. Like I said this one is going to be quick.
Step 1: I copy our Default icon from yesterday. I am going to be putting some text on it so I want to make sure that the surface of the icon is a bit more opaque, so I tweak the main objects fill with the Interactive Transparency tool, and stick a dark background behind my Icon so I can tell how it looks.	Step 2: Now, using the Rectangle tool, I place one slightly transparent black box on the page And duplicate it down the page. I am going for that Notepad kind of feeling. This is a kind of tired look, but like I said this icon is going to be quick. I also copy the last box, rotate it and turn it red for our margin line.	Step 3: Now using the Text tool we simply put in some text, because I am doing this as a tutorial I just grabbed some from the day one article and pasted it in. I am making the top text white on the blue background, this will probably end up being a standard for the pack.
Step 4: Now using the same technique as the last two days, I copy the main image and convert it to a bitmap, flip it, crop it and fade it out. To get our reflection.	Finished Icon Image.	Download Finished Icon Here
This is the Text File icon; its not a real wow icon, but it is more important then most people think. Tomorrow I will try and do something a bit more impressive. Someone suggested I do a video of this. I think I will try and do a few videos showing some of the techniques I am using a lot, so keep an eye out for that. Read other Icon-A-Day Articles. Icon # 1, Icon # 2, And don't forget to check for all the Icon-A-Day icons as they get made, in the Miscellaneous Icons Gallery at Wincustomize.com

Comments

Stupendous Man

on Jan 10, 2005

Mormegil, maybe for you this is "not a real wow icon", but for those of us who wish we had just a fraction of your talent this is a VERY cool icon. Thanks for the tutorial and keep 'em comin'!

Corky_O

on Jan 10, 2005

Day #3 and I have learned so much.

Thanks, Teach.

retiredmaster

on Jan 11, 2005

This is a great series of tutorials and a good encouragement for non-icon people (like me) to get on and do some icons. I'm looking forward to the more difficult ones (like my computer and the drive icons).

Will_Uknight

on Jan 12, 2005

i always longed to learn how to do graphics work, and extend my digital techniques.

Thankyou !

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