

Utilities (orthogonal rectangular background).Appliance applications (round - or at least non-rectangular - background).Document applications (rectangular background angled 5-10° left).Ignoring the "Finder" icon (which is actually the "Mac OS" icon and predates Mac OS X by about 5 years), these icons come in three distinct styles: Icon styles on the Macīy contrast, icons on the Mac tend to have more in common: They share no obvious visual style they are all drawn with different perspective, they all have different weights, some are glossy while others are matte, some have line edges while others are self-edged (no lines) and they don't share a color palette. These are the first four icons that a Windows 7 user sees and they are the strangest collection of graphics I've ever seen. I continue to be surprised when I look at screenshots of the Windows 7 taskbar.

In addition to detailing iPhone icon creation, the second part will also cover basic Mac icon design.

The remaining four will be covered in the second part. Only the first icon will be created in this part. This series will cover the creation of the following different icons: In this first part, I'll talk about the common styles and traits of icons on the Mac and iPhone and give a step-by-step guide to creating the first iPhone icon in Inkscape. In this two part series, I'll give a beginner's guide to creating iPhone and Mac application icons using Inkscape - a free, vector illustration program.
