A few weeks ago I started talking to Parthiban Mohanraj, who you met back in May when I introduced the new Zen Grid Framework icon, about putting together a series of icons for our Joomla extensions. Up until now I've really just cobbled together a few screenshots of the extensions and put them on an angle in an attempt to be creative and while that had mostly worked for the JB site there wasn't a cohesive throughline that connected the icons.

So I've put together a brief for our major icons and thought I'd document the process here. I must say at the very outset that Parth is an incredible resource and a real dream to work with. He is fast and professional with such an incredible eye for detail that I won't hesitate to recommend him to anyone who needs icons designed - right enough of the smoke - lets dive into the process. If you need to contact Parth directly you can do so via his page over at Deviant Art.

The first stage for developing anything really has to be in the research and direction provided by the client. And so I put together some keywords and a brief description of the functionality that each of our extensions covers so that Parth could get a better sense of what they actually do. As you can see Parth starts from sketches which I love - especially for someone like myself who uses a mouse to draw. I think sketching the ideas first really help to add an organic feel to the end result - thats certainly been borne out by the icons that have been finished and Ill be unveiling sometime next week.

Process

Here is what I gave Parth in terms of raw inspiration and Ive added his rough sketch for each idea after the bullet points I provided.

Micro Blog

• Latest news / featured news module.
• News paper - I prefer this idea
• Pencil
• Mouth
• Loud Speaker

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Captify Content

• Grid Based gallery or image menu.
• Images are taken from the module and shown in a grid and then link to the content item
• glossy grid of photos
• Photo showing the animation that happens when the user rolls over the image

Slideshow

• Content and image fader
• photographic slides
• old style projector

JB Library

• jQuery plugin that loads jQuery, lazy load, ie6 warning and bvack to top button
• Pile of Books
• Book with jQuery logo on front. Need to check on the licensing of the jQuery logo

prettyBox

• Grid based image gallery that loads images from a folder and displays them in a lightbox.
• Photos / images in a grid.
• Picture frame with ornate edges.
• Cargo box with photos on the outside
• Cargo box with a photo frame on it.

JB Type

• Plugin that allows the user to use simple syntax to render more compelx markup and typography.
• Big Letter T
• Old style typewriter

Minimoo2

• Image slider.
• Pulls images from a folder and then creates a traditional jQuery slider.
• A frame or a simple box that is sliding from left to right.
• Some sort of motion/blur so it looks like the frame is moving.

jTweet

• Twitter Module
• Your take on the twitter bird.
• Your take on the Letter T for twitter.

As I mentioned above some of these icons have already been signed off but Im going to hold off on unveiling them until the collection has been finished. Stay tuned for the next update ...

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