A few new icons for Meridian
Jeff Hokit commissioned me to make a few new icons for his application Meridian. Meridian is a World Clock, Alarm Clock, Stopwatch, and Timer for Mac OS X.
The more icons I do, the more I learn that details are important even at these super small sizes. In the past I would have designed 32x32 pixel icons at real size, but i've been getting much better results when I design at 4 or 8 times bigger than needed. Seems obvious now.
Another trick I've been employing is to sharpen the center parts of the icon, but leaving the edge unsharpened. It's easy to do in PhotoShop by slightly shrinking your selection mask, then feather its edge by 1 pixel. leaving the edges untouched by the sharpen filter reduces the jagged edge effect that makes the icon look unnatural.