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I put up a couple of hundred icons that I'd drawn previously up with a public domain license. Here are the download counts and royalties from the last 10 months

I put up a couple of hundred icons that I'd drawn previously up with a public domain license. Here are the download counts and royalties from the last 10 months for reference: http://i.imgur.com/clNZWUk.png http://i.imgur.com/clNZWUk.png

tinbad 9y ago
Are you saying creating and sharing icon sets is not a get-rich-quick-scheme? ;)
- felixthehat 9y ago
  Ah the halcyon days of September last year when I made nearly $40. Still, it's free beer money, and a good enough way to distribute work to the public domain. It feels good as a designer who's not able to easily contribute to the open source community.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    Thanks for helping society out.
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    > It feels good as a designer who's not able to easily contribute to the open source community. You would be surprised how helpful it is to simply offer design insights for free. A lot of projects are maintainted by programmers who have zero design notions and who are not even aware of the little things. Offering a free mockup to an open-source project is also very valuable.
    - nulagrithom 9y ago
      For example: https://github.com/pugjs/pug/issues/2189 https://github.com/pugjs/pug/issues/2189 Jade had to rename. They picked 'Pug' and needed a logo. christopherdowson asks if anyone can propose a logo and ends up creating the final logo. Pretty neat thread IMO.
      - rangibaby 9y ago
        Neat thread but this is bs: (as that's a licensed typeface, so you can't use it without paying a fair amount). Typefaces are exempt from copyright in most countries AFAIK. Only the actual font file ("computer program") and name (trademark) are restricted.
        Raphmedia 9y ago
        You do need to purchase the font to use it to make the logo. Forcing an open source project to pay roughly $200 for a one time use is a bad decision. Using such a typeface in a logo is a poor choice because that mean you can't embed it easily for free on the product's website (let's say to use as the font of your titles or to use text on the logo instead of using an image). The problem with embedding a font on a website is that by doing so you are not "using" the font but "redistributing" it. In the end they used Arvo which was a really good choice, they were able to easily use it all over https://pugjs.org https://pugjs.org
    - felixthehat 9y ago
      I've tried with mixed results. Some OS projects have been super grateful for tiny things such as favicons and logo vectorisation, but in my experience most tend to acknowledge but not implement work sent on spec. After a quick search I've just discovered opensourcedesign.net which I'll definitely look at contributing to. This would be great for designers portfolios http://opensourcedesign.net/jobs http://opensourcedesign.net/jobs
      - zubat 9y ago
        It's a tough nut to crack. Open source contributors tend to want to dive in and make the one patch they want without engaging in any design or feedback process. Installing that process means someone has to take up managerial duties. Most projects stumble along with a "one coder army" who expedites these processes by assuming anything they can't do on their lonesome is out of scope, and all feedback, patches or design ideas are strictly suggestion. Switching to a team management approach when a project gets big is a big source of friction since it's rare to have a strong solo dev who is equally capable at giving up direct control and delegating. Usage of a project is often mismatched with development energy, creating unbalanced workloads. So the tendency ends up being that a lot of projects just stay small and go out of their way not to grow, even when they address a problem that demands more scope than they have. My suggestion given all of that is to not give up, but focus your design energies on the inspirational: if you produce mockups and prototypes that are hugely compelling, someone will come out of the woodwork to realize some of them: you may not know which ones or when, but you're giving them footholds in approaching the problem.
        felixthehat 9y ago
        Yes, I've not tried submitting pull requests or forking code so I don't have any experience of the etiquette or protocols needed like developers must have in spades. Very interesting point about inspirational mockups, definitely food for thought!
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - 9y ago
  - evincarofautumn 9y ago
    I’m sure there are loads of open-source projects that would benefit from design contributions, they just don’t necessarily think to ask for it. (For example, I could use a bit of help later this year from someone with a UI/UX/web background.)
    - felixthehat 9y ago
      my site is in my bio, hit me up when you need design help :)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
CodyReichert 9y ago
I've picked up several things on Noun Project - good to actually see that the designers get compensated for that, even if it is just beer money :)
tomcam 9y ago
Some very good work by parent: https://thenounproject.com/blackspike/ https://thenounproject.com/blackspike/
libeclipse 9y ago
Damn. I always purchase the icons, that's really peak that others don't do the same.

tinbad 9y ago

Are you saying creating and sharing icon sets is not a get-rich-quick-scheme? ;)

felixthehat 9y ago
Ah the halcyon days of September last year when I made nearly $40. Still, it's free beer money, and a good enough way to distribute work to the public domain. It feels good as a designer who's not able to easily contribute to the open source community.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Thanks for helping society out.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  > It feels good as a designer who's not able to easily contribute to the open source community. You would be surprised how helpful it is to simply offer design insights for free. A lot of projects are maintainted by programmers who have zero design notions and who are not even aware of the little things. Offering a free mockup to an open-source project is also very valuable.
  - nulagrithom 9y ago
    For example: https://github.com/pugjs/pug/issues/2189 https://github.com/pugjs/pug/issues/2189 Jade had to rename. They picked 'Pug' and needed a logo. christopherdowson asks if anyone can propose a logo and ends up creating the final logo. Pretty neat thread IMO.
    - rangibaby 9y ago
      Neat thread but this is bs: (as that's a licensed typeface, so you can't use it without paying a fair amount). Typefaces are exempt from copyright in most countries AFAIK. Only the actual font file ("computer program") and name (trademark) are restricted.
      - Raphmedia 9y ago
        You do need to purchase the font to use it to make the logo. Forcing an open source project to pay roughly $200 for a one time use is a bad decision. Using such a typeface in a logo is a poor choice because that mean you can't embed it easily for free on the product's website (let's say to use as the font of your titles or to use text on the logo instead of using an image). The problem with embedding a font on a website is that by doing so you are not "using" the font but "redistributing" it. In the end they used Arvo which was a really good choice, they were able to easily use it all over https://pugjs.org https://pugjs.org
  - felixthehat 9y ago
    I've tried with mixed results. Some OS projects have been super grateful for tiny things such as favicons and logo vectorisation, but in my experience most tend to acknowledge but not implement work sent on spec. After a quick search I've just discovered opensourcedesign.net which I'll definitely look at contributing to. This would be great for designers portfolios http://opensourcedesign.net/jobs http://opensourcedesign.net/jobs
    - zubat 9y ago
      It's a tough nut to crack. Open source contributors tend to want to dive in and make the one patch they want without engaging in any design or feedback process. Installing that process means someone has to take up managerial duties. Most projects stumble along with a "one coder army" who expedites these processes by assuming anything they can't do on their lonesome is out of scope, and all feedback, patches or design ideas are strictly suggestion. Switching to a team management approach when a project gets big is a big source of friction since it's rare to have a strong solo dev who is equally capable at giving up direct control and delegating. Usage of a project is often mismatched with development energy, creating unbalanced workloads. So the tendency ends up being that a lot of projects just stay small and go out of their way not to grow, even when they address a problem that demands more scope than they have. My suggestion given all of that is to not give up, but focus your design energies on the inspirational: if you produce mockups and prototypes that are hugely compelling, someone will come out of the woodwork to realize some of them: you may not know which ones or when, but you're giving them footholds in approaching the problem.
      - felixthehat 9y ago
        Yes, I've not tried submitting pull requests or forking code so I don't have any experience of the etiquette or protocols needed like developers must have in spades. Very interesting point about inspirational mockups, definitely food for thought!
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - 9y ago
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  I’m sure there are loads of open-source projects that would benefit from design contributions, they just don’t necessarily think to ask for it. (For example, I could use a bit of help later this year from someone with a UI/UX/web background.)
  - felixthehat 9y ago
    my site is in my bio, hit me up when you need design help :)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

CodyReichert 9y ago

I've picked up several things on Noun Project - good to actually see that the designers get compensated for that, even if it is just beer money :)

tomcam 9y ago

Some very good work by parent: https://thenounproject.com/blackspike/ https://thenounproject.com/blackspike/

libeclipse 9y ago

Damn. I always purchase the icons, that's really peak that others don't do the same.