Iconographer for Hire
Ah, how times have changed. When I was a high school student, I toiled in menial, uninteresting jobs at late hours for a pittance. By contrast, today’s teenagers, with their cell phones and their Instant Messengers and their iPods, are finding ways to earn their pennywhistles and moonpies in a more fulfilling way: by joining the Creative Class!
Take my little brother Bobby (pictured here in Vail—isn’t he a handsome young man?), for example. When I started needing new toolbar icons for PodWorks on a tighter schedule than the IconFactory could manage, Bobby picked up the slack and provided beautiful new playback and “Show Info” icons on a moment’s notice (see them here—they’re the last two). I’m very pleased with them, and I think they compare rather favorably to the other, IconFactory-designed, icons in the set.
Bobby’s icon work didn’t end there, though. Industrious young man that he is, it wasn’t long before he was turning out scads of icons for every occasion, with an eye toward eventually going pro. Some lovely examples of his recent handiwork are pictured below.
Note the use of perspective on the folders and the swishy arrows—clearly the marks of a young man who is mastering the tricky bits of drawing teeny tiny pictures!
Needless to say, I’m bursting with pride in my brother’s emerging talent, and I’d like to see him achieve some success. Given past complaints among smaller Mac developers about the difficulty of getting good icons at a reasonable price, I think Bobby and the indie software community might be a great match. So, if you’re working on an application and you find yourself in need of some design consultation, do keep the kid in mind (you can contact him through me) and help a highly motivated youngster earn some money doing what he loves!