I am delighted to announce that my article about creating 512x512 icons for Mac OS X Leopard has been published at Smashing Magazine!

Smashing Magazine delivers useful, inspirational and innovative information for designers and web-developers and it's a great pleasure for me to contribute to such a creative designer environment!

“In 2000 Apple released the visual theme Aqua, a stunning leap forward in graphical user interface design. At the same time Apple published the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), a tool for developers and designers that gives a detailed breakdown of the design philosophy behind Aqua. Apple recently updated their Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), to include the way the visual theme Aqua has evolved in Apple's latest operating system, OS X 10.5 Leopard. This is the first update since 2006.”

Aqua: "Gorgeous, artistic icons are an important part of the Mac OS X user experience. Users expect beautiful icons that tell an application’s story in a clear and memorable way". Well, how do icon designers go about creating beautiful icons in 512x512 glory? Leopard and the Updated HIG: A Designer's Guide to Icons examines Aqua's interface. Realism, symbols, silhouettes, transparency, light source and perspective. We take a look at the Dock, Leopard's file browser Cover Flow and the icon sizes. Finally you will find some practical tips on how to scale your art work so that the smaller versions become crisp and clear.

Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Leopard, interface, design, usability, gui, guide, tutorial, realism

Sick of that boring, impersonal, generic computer desktop but not quite sure how to change it and make it yours? The Help Desk is open! Here you you can find out how to use icons to make your desktop personal and productive.

Step-by-step tutorials guide you through how to save desktop art to your computer with ease and change the desktop icons on Mac OSX or customize the icons on Windows, how to use system replacement icons as well as how to customise your desktop picture / wallpaper with just a few clicks. Tutorials both for Windows and Mac.

There is no need to worry about which operating system you are using! These simple steps work in both Windows Vista, Windows XP as well as the classic, older Windows operating systems. Mac users can use these tutorials both to customise Mac OSX Leopard, the previous verisons of Mac OSX and the classic older versions of Mac operating systems.

There is also a printable PDF version that provides a way for you to keep an offline copy or print a copy for later use. Sometimes it can be handy to have a printed version on one's desk, whilst going through the different steps.

It's fun and easy to beautify your desktop! To make your digital working and leisure environment personal, functional, practical, gorgeous, to give it the look and visual cues you want it to have!

Tags: tutorial, gui, guide, how-to, faq, customise, customisation, productivity, desktop, Mac, Mac OS X, Leopard, Windows, Vista

Well, while I was off to have Easter dinner with my family, the Easter Hare showed up for his last visit for the year! There were paw prints all over the house and he had left a note by my laptop with little odd drawings, scribbles and arrows explaining where all the eggs were...

Here are all the eggs and their locations! If you missed the egg hunt you can download them here.

And there is more! This was just the beginning of fun desktop events here at Marmalade Moon! I am launching a new project for people who like to customize their desktops: Club Marmalade Moon!

Members will receive exclusive, limited edition, designer desktop art that will be free for use in personal projects. You can use the desktop art to decorate your computer desktop. Or your blog or website. You can use it for your computer user account, your forum profile, or instant messenger. You can customise your social network such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter. Making your digital space personal and beautiful. And it's fun to collect the desktop art too!

Sign up today and be part of the grand opening in April!

Happy Easter!

Tags: design, desktop, interface, customise, customisation, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, holiday, Easter icon egg hunt

He's been here! The Easter Hare was all excited and said he had hidden six eight Easter Egg Icons on the Marmalade Moon!

I asked him what you were supposed to do when you found an egg, he gave me a look like I am hopeless, and said that “you just click on it and you will be magically transported to a secret page where you can save them to your computer”.

Then his paintbrush dropped out of his satchel and he snatched it back up and suddenly looked a bit worried. He said something about finding the right shades for chocolate, and said he'd be back with more eggs “when they were ready”. Then he jumped vertically for no apparent reason. Blinked and darted off.

Just like that! There was no time for me to remind him that the last day for the egg hunt is on Easter Monday, 24 March and ask him what he had planned for the grand finale! If anything... One wonders... I will keep you updated when I see any more evidence of his work...

Until then, good luck on your icon egg hunt! Six eight eggs to find to start with!

CLUE: If you have recently been browsing Marmalade Moon you might have to reload a page to see the egg, or clear the cashe in your browser.

Tags: design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, holiday, Easter icon egg hunt

So, I ran into the Easter Bunny and, he said there is going to be a desktop icon egg hunt here at Marmalade Moon!

Yes, he really did seem mad as a March hare, this bunny, or rabbit... Very excited, but also a bit scatterbrained... I was asking him about dates and how many of these eggs he was planning to bring but all I could get out of him was that it will be going on “during Easter” and that he will be hiding “some beautiful eggs” all over Marmalade Moon... When I pressed he said the last day for the hunt would be on Easter Monday, 24 March.

I think that was a bit too much for him, having to be so specific, because after that he started mumbling about whether these eggs would be wrapped in foil or not, or if they would be made of chocolate or if they were going to be all in shades of pastels or in stronger colours, with patterns or dyed, hollow or solid... And then he hopped off with a jerk, I assume to make preparations, and I refrained from passing any comments about tin foil...

Tags: design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, holiday, Easter icon egg hunt

Announcing the release of a set of Full Moon icons based on the colourful moons from my recent Total Lunar Eclipse Collection of desktop pictures.

Customize your desktop with this set of icons includes nine variations reaching from a pale, milky white moon, through shades of yellow, glowing oranges and reds as well as some blue moons.

Full Moon icons are Leopard and Vista ready!

Tags: design, iPhone, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, celestial, astronomy, Moon

I am busy creating more desktop art on the theme of the full moon. There will be a new set of icons with the full moon based on the colourful moons from the Total Lunar Eclipse Collection of wallpapers. I am planning a set that spans from silvery white, a harvest moon and blood red moons in explosive shades of red, orange, pink and palest lilac. Oh, and a blue moon too of course!

Also, on popular demand, I am remastering 'The Painted Desert', a desert landscape with moon. Adding new sizes for large monitors and for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as dual monitor versions.

These are some of the ideas I am working on just now, so check back for this new set of icons with the Full Moon and for 'The Painted Desert' desktop picture.

Tags: design, nature, celestial, astronomy, Moon, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen, dual monitor, Windows, Mac, Mac OS X

I just updated two sets of icons, Valentine's Day and Wedding with new juicy big sizes for Mac for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista in time for for the Iconfactory's Valentine's Day Celebration. Naturally these icons still also contain versions for the classic systems.

These icons will look simply gorgeous in Leopard’s Cover Flow or as searchable CandyBar iContainers.

Valentine's Day includes hearts, a Valentine's Day card, a forget-me-not, a rose and a box of chocolates.

Originally I created Wedding as an iconic wedding gift for a friend and co-worker. The collection has a Chinese theme and includes a wedding invitation, a bridal bouquet of red roses, gold wedding rings, a wedding cake, a present, a glass of champagne and the Chinese symbol for Double Happiness.

So head on over to the Iconfactory's Valentine's Day Celebration, where you will find that the desktop cupid has presented romantic wallpapers and icons!

Tags: design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, seasonal, holiday, Valentine's Day, romance, bold

Let these snowflake icons designed in the iPhone style gently drift down on your desktop.

The collection of iPhonica Snowflakes includes large sizes for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista as well as versions for the older systems.

Season's Greetings, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Marmalade Moon!

Tags: design, iPhone, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, snow, winter, seasonal, holiday

This fun and colourful collection of iPhone inspired icons has been updated for modern systems.

The set is now complete with 512x512 pixel versions for Mac OS X Leopard and 256x256 pixel versions for Windows Vista added to the versions for the older systems.

Head on over to the Freebies page to download the updated collection of iPhonica Volume 1 icons for Leopard and Vista to your computer!

Tags: design, iPhone, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista

The Hieroglyphica collection of desktop art is a tribute to the mother of all written languages and of computer icons - the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs or 'Divine Words' as the Egyptians themselves called them. Hieroglyphs, symbols, pictographs, pictograms, icons...

In time for the holidays, 'Sandstone' Desktop Picture has been updated for some of our new icons of our modern times - Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch.

Icons from this collection: 'Hieroglyphica Vol 1' and 'Hieroglyphica Vol 2'

Tags: design, Egypt, ancient, historical, hieroglyph, relief, fullscreen, widescreen, iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac OS X, Windows

I designed a new set of Halloween icons in the iPhonica style available for download over at the Iconfactory.

Tricky spiders, skulls, cobwebs, a pointed witch's hat, candy corn, ghosts and ghouls as well as some smashing pumpkins will crawl out of this collection of icons! Happy Halloween!

Tags: iPhone, design, desktop, interface, holiday, Mac OS X, Windows

I designed a new set of icons in the iPhonica style. This time it is application icons for iLife.

There are five icons in the collection, including iPhoto, iWeb, iDVD, iMovie and GarageBand. Download iPhonica Volume 3 at the Iconfactory!

Update: Since Apple redesigned the iLife 08 version of iMovie I added a second version of the iLife icon to the set – the iLife ‘08 version of iMovie.

Tags: iPhone, design, desktop, interface, iLife, Mac OS X, Windows

I have designed a system replacement set in the popular iPhonica style available for download at the Iconfactory. The set contains over 70 icons to customise your entire system in the simple and clear silhouetted style of Apple’s hottest new sensation, the iPhone!

Disclaimer, turning your computer sideways will NOT initiate portrait mode.

Tags: iPhone, design, system, interface, desktop, Mac OS X, Windows

Even I was surprised that there were SO many people longing for their new iPhones!

On popular demand I created a second set of iPhonica icons. Volume 2 of my series of icons based on the upcoming GUI of Apple's new iPhone is this week's freeware release over at the Iconfactory. The set contains 10 new icons. A rose for your iPhone Valentine. A snowflake for winter. And several more utilitarian icons too.

Tags: iPhone, design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows

Can't wait for your new iPhone? Turn your computer into a wannabe iPhone with 15 brand new iPhonica icons!

These iPhone inspired icons include icons for music, work, experiments, favourites, various forms of electronic communication, hardware as well as coffee, a dry martini, a slice of orange and of course your favourite game, World of Warcraft. 

Tags: design, iPhone, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows