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[? Music ?] [Code Racer] [Designing an Icon Set]

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We'll use the same principles and techniques I used

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while I created the Code Racer icons, only this time we'll be creating

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food icons for a fictitious company. 

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When we're creating this icon set, I'll keep the following things in mind.

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Simplicity allows for individual icons to be easy to scan

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and easy to translate their meaning at both large and small scales.

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This gets more and more important as the quantity of the icon set increases.

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Try to keep the color palette within the icon to a minimum,

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which will allow for a little bit more freedom when coming up

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with a cohesive color palette for the entire icon set.

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We're going to create a food icon set that contains 4 cohesive icons:

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a steak, bread, fish, and veggies.

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I'm going to find a few pictures online to reference and use as a starting point

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for designing my icons.

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[commons.wikimedia.org]

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Be mindful of copyright laws when searching for images online.

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Make sure you're abstracting or loosely referencing an image when tracing.

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To play it safe, you can use resources like Flikr's Creative Commons

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and Wikimedia Commons or purchase stock photos

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to avoid any possible copyright infringements.

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[www.flikr.com]

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You should most definitely do this if you plan to sell or distribute your icon set.

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If your icons are going to have color, it can be helpful to use tools like Adobe Kuler

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to assist you in coming up with a fun color scheme.

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[kuler.adobe.com] It will at least get you started.

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When you're searching for a series of photos, 

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try to find images where the object appears to be at the same angle.

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This will help with consistency.

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I'm looking for high angle shots of all of my food.

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I'm also going to look for an image of a T-bone steak

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instead of a picture of a filet, for example,

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because a T-bone would be much easier to recognize as a simple icon

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than a filet.

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When you start tracing the photo, don't be as exact as you would

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if you were cutting the image out of the background.

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Use the photo as a guideline for the general shape

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and go back in, delete anchors and refine 

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and continue to do this until you're satisfied with the result.

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Continue to do this for the remaining icons.

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[? Music ?]

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When going from one icon to the next,

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try to keep the same style in mind.

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Keep the dimension, angle, stroke, corner radius, 

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et cetera, all the same if you can.

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This will help your icon set to look the best it possibly can.

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Now we have a cohesive set of food icons.