In the past I had problems when I wanted to create icons quickly for my Windows Phone 7 apps before submitting them to the marketplace certification. A good set of consistent icons is a good way to give a good first impression to your future customers, but if you decide to create those icons yourself then it is a time consuming task. I decided to fix this problem for good!
Windows Phone 7 Icons with Expression Design
For your application and for marketplace submission you will need the following artwork:
- Application Icon (62 x 62)
- Application Tile Image (173 x 173)
- Marketplace catalog icon (small) (99 x 99)
- Marketplate catalog icon (large) (173 x 173)
- Desktop application icon (200 x 200)
To create an icon and the resize it correctly and export it is always a lot of repetitive work, the one I do not enjoy. So in my favorite design tool – Expression Design 4 – created a file, where all you need is to replace the shape in each icon and select File | Export and you are done. All the icons will be ready for your project.
I created a git repository for it called WP7ExpressionIcons.
I used this to articles as my starting point:
Great effort Krisztián. Couldn’t have come along at a more ideal time for me!
Glad, I could help you with it!
Thx for linking back.
Hello! Just want to say thank you for this interesting article! =) Peace, Joy.
Hello, in case you’ve missed it, I created a similar template in Expression Blend with auto-export to PNG. You can read/download it here: http://www.frenk.com/2011/02/wp7-icons-quick-and-undirty/
Thanks for the article. This seems to be very useful. Never thought about using blend to generate icons!