I am always having problems when it comes to creating icons for my Wp7 apps. I am a coder and not a designer, so drawing something nice looking is really really out of my comfort zone.
Previously I spent hours trying to draw symbols myself, but I never really liked the outcome. But lately, I found a quick and effective way to create nice looking icons for my Windows Phone 7 apps. Here it goes:
The Noun project
First, I go to the nounproject website to find some nice looking symbols. This website has hundreeds of symbols and you can download them for free in vector format. The graphics comes with a Creative Commons license, so you’re free to do whatever you want with them. Sounds pretty neat, if you ask me!
![Inline image 1](http://www.littlebigtomatoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/000.png)
Once, you found the symbol you like, download and extract it. The symbol is in SVG format. I am using Expression Design for drawing my icons, but Design unfortunately does not support SVG yet. I need a tool that can convert SVG to something that I can import to Expression Design.
![Inline image 2](http://www.littlebigtomatoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/001_thumb.png)
Inkscape
With Inkscape I can do exactly this. Inkscape can import SVG and can export .PDF and .PDF can be imported to Expression Design. Inkscape is a very cool, free and open source drawing application. You can download it from here.
Read more: littlebigtomatoes
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