Glass icons can be considered an independent icon style.Nevertheless it is logical to assume that glass style is just one of the types of the shiny, glossy design.
Other types of the glossy web icons design that can be marked out:
- glass icons;
- metal icons;
- glass-metal icons;
- transparent icons.
Glossy icons can be aqua, crystal, plastic etc. and at the same time transparent and half-transparent.
Glass icons are frequently depicted with reflecting. It is one of the standard features of the "Web 2.0" icons. You may find various tutorials on the internet instructing to make vertical reflection effect for web icons.
The clean look of glass icons makes navigating through the websites playful and attracts lots of people. If you wish to create such neat web icons you can easily find hundreds of tutorials on the Internet.
Creation of glass web icons.
Adobe Photoshop is the number 1 software for creating web icons. Photoshop is becoming steadily more and more flexible software for design. Originally it was rather an image editor and nowadays it allows to produce almost all visual effects used for the graphic design. A lot of the great web icons designs were made up of a help of this software. The main feature of the latest Photoshop versions is the ability to combine pixel painting with vector tool for creating glass icons, buttons, characters etc.<\p>
The best way to design Glass icons is to make the "glass" layer overlap the image, not the whole image but the most of it. With a help of the "eraser" tool it is possible to build an empty diagonal line through the image. You are supposed to proceed using eraser for making adjustments to the glass layer until the moment when the glass effect repeats the contour of the icon. It should kind of the glass haze in the opposite sides. After this procedure complete the further adjustments should be applied.
Professional web designers should use this effect carefully and be aware that glass-fever may look ridiculous . Remember glass icons should be used with taste so that the website style could remain professional and reserved.