Glass web icons can be considered an independent icon style though 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 web teaching to make vertical reflection effect for web icons.
It is the effect when icons are like images placed on a shiny, reflecting surface or tower above the water surface.
The crisp and pure look of glass icons makes navigating through the website pages attractive and playful. In the Internet sources you can definitely find numerous tutorials about the ways of creating such neat web icons.
Methods for simple and fast creation of glass web icons.
Adobe Photoshop is the most well-known software for creating web icons. Photoshop is becoming more and more flexible and multitasking software for design. Nowadays it allows to create almost all visual effects used for the graphic design. A great amount of the prominent web designers and illustrators create their great web icons designs with this software. The most important 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 simplest way to design Glass web icons is to make the "glass" layer overlap the image, not the whole image but the most of it. By using 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 site designers should use this effect carefully and be aware that glass-fever may look ridiculous . Glass icons should be used with taste so that the web-site style could remain professional and reserved.
