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Show HN: Hand Drawn Icons

8 points by vladocar 15y ago

Hi all, here it is my side project Hand Drawn Icons http://www.handdrawnicons.com/ strangely making large icon set is more difficult than it seams and most time consuming part is not the drawing of the icons but organizing and preparing everything for the launch. What do you think about this icon set and the web site in general. Any suggestion and tips how can I improve this project?

dgunn 15y ago
So you're selling icons? How do you plan to compete with all the free icons out there? Gnome alone offers dozens of really nice icon sets. I commonly replace my default icons with more interesting ones and I've never paid for them. Who is your target market?
- vladocar 15y ago
  Yes, it is try there are many free icon sets. The problem with free is usually quality and maintenance. My goal is to give quality icons and to constantly update the project with new icons. Who is your target market? Anyone who wants different looking icons, designers who are looking for icons for wireframing (made by hand) and all the other web sites who are little different then usual.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - dgunn 15y ago
    A question you may want to answer for yourself is how long are you willing to maintain the set with little to no compensation for it. Cause it may take a long time for this to make much money, if it ever does. Furthermore, the income may have a cap. I know if I was looking for an icon set for a website I wouldn't want the same set everyone else is using. Which is why I always roll my own icons for websites.
arkitaip 15y ago
These looks very similar to the icons in Balsamiq Mockups.
- dgunn 15y ago
  I agree but to be fair, they look exactly like any icons which are meant to look hand-drawn.
bmelton 15y ago
I work with designers often, and while I can't speak from their point of view, I have observed some trends from my icon designing friends: - You want to design multiple sets, if for no other reason than to give people multiple ways to find you. You don't necessarily have to create a brand new site for each icon set, but it doesn't necessarily hurt either. Each of those pages should cross-link to the other sets and/or a master portfolio site. - Aside from the sale of the icon sets themselves, I've seen a number of icon designers contacted for creating icons that don't exist. If I'm building an app, I might need a 'battery depleted' icon or a 'the app is ready' icon that doesn't exist. Make sure you have a way to be contacted for this, and publish that you offer it as a service (if you do).
- vladocar 15y ago
  Excellent tip, thanks. Actually I was planing to make this service in the future, so people can ask for custom drawn icons.
helen842000 15y ago
I like them, they have more character than the balsamiq mockup icons. I'll probably use them for a notebook site I'm building. If selling some of these icon sets covers your costs and allows you to keep doing it, then that's great! Plenty of people will get to benefit from any free sets that you do (like the Christmas ones!) Also, paid icons will add a little something extra, instead of being ubiquitous like the freely downloaded icon sets, they'll add a little more charm & creativity to a project.
japhyr 15y ago
Click: http://www.handdrawnicons.com/ http://www.handdrawnicons.com/
abcd_f 15y ago
Raster images are largely useless for professional design purposes. Moreover, the images that are trivial to sketch on a paper with a pencil and turn into PNGs by snapping and cleaning up a photo. This is trivial. It's like trying to sell "#include" statements to a C programmer. So the first thing to change to make this set more appealing to a wider designer audience is to convert them to vectors.
- vladocar 15y ago
  I would normally agree with you about the raster v.s vector when it comes to normal proportional icons or shapes. But when it comes to hand drawn icons if you want to reproduce the hand drawn authenticity and fidelity you usually don't use the vector format. It is like saving photos in vector format. "This is trivial." - Actually is harder than you think, few mounts of work, drawing and redrawing, sorting, organizing, web site preparation etc.. Drawing just one icon can sometimes take few hours and trust me the drawing is the easiest part.

8 points by vladocar 15y ago

dgunn 15y ago

So you're selling icons? How do you plan to compete with all the free icons out there? Gnome alone offers dozens of really nice icon sets. I commonly replace my default icons with more interesting ones and I've never paid for them. Who is your target market?

vladocar 15y ago
Yes, it is try there are many free icon sets. The problem with free is usually quality and maintenance. My goal is to give quality icons and to constantly update the project with new icons. Who is your target market? Anyone who wants different looking icons, designers who are looking for icons for wireframing (made by hand) and all the other web sites who are little different then usual.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- dgunn 15y ago
  A question you may want to answer for yourself is how long are you willing to maintain the set with little to no compensation for it. Cause it may take a long time for this to make much money, if it ever does. Furthermore, the income may have a cap. I know if I was looking for an icon set for a website I wouldn't want the same set everyone else is using. Which is why I always roll my own icons for websites.

arkitaip 15y ago

These looks very similar to the icons in Balsamiq Mockups.

dgunn 15y ago
I agree but to be fair, they look exactly like any icons which are meant to look hand-drawn.

bmelton 15y ago

I work with designers often, and while I can't speak from their point of view, I have observed some trends from my icon designing friends: - You want to design multiple sets, if for no other reason than to give people multiple ways to find you. You don't necessarily have to create a brand new site for each icon set, but it doesn't necessarily hurt either. Each of those pages should cross-link to the other sets and/or a master portfolio site. - Aside from the sale of the icon sets themselves, I've seen a number of icon designers contacted for creating icons that don't exist. If I'm building an app, I might need a 'battery depleted' icon or a 'the app is ready' icon that doesn't exist. Make sure you have a way to be contacted for this, and publish that you offer it as a service (if you do).

vladocar 15y ago
Excellent tip, thanks. Actually I was planing to make this service in the future, so people can ask for custom drawn icons.

helen842000 15y ago

I like them, they have more character than the balsamiq mockup icons. I'll probably use them for a notebook site I'm building. If selling some of these icon sets covers your costs and allows you to keep doing it, then that's great! Plenty of people will get to benefit from any free sets that you do (like the Christmas ones!) Also, paid icons will add a little something extra, instead of being ubiquitous like the freely downloaded icon sets, they'll add a little more charm & creativity to a project.

japhyr 15y ago

Click: http://www.handdrawnicons.com/ http://www.handdrawnicons.com/

abcd_f 15y ago

Raster images are largely useless for professional design purposes. Moreover, the images that are trivial to sketch on a paper with a pencil and turn into PNGs by snapping and cleaning up a photo. This is trivial. It's like trying to sell "#include" statements to a C programmer. So the first thing to change to make this set more appealing to a wider designer audience is to convert them to vectors.

vladocar 15y ago
I would normally agree with you about the raster v.s vector when it comes to normal proportional icons or shapes. But when it comes to hand drawn icons if you want to reproduce the hand drawn authenticity and fidelity you usually don't use the vector format. It is like saving photos in vector format. "This is trivial." - Actually is harder than you think, few mounts of work, drawing and redrawing, sorting, organizing, web site preparation etc.. Drawing just one icon can sometimes take few hours and trust me the drawing is the easiest part.