reddit_refugees | Icons on Dreamwidth (Reply)

Dreamwidth uses icons to identify users and express ideas. An icon is a 100x100 pixel image that appears when you make a post or a comment. It can be always the same image, deliberately chosen to match the topic, or random. For Frequently Asked Questions about using icons on Dreamwidth, see the section on official materials at the bottom of this post.

About Your Icons

You can have upload icon or many to your Dreamwidth account. The number depends on the type of account you have. Everyone gets at least 15.

Your "default icon" is the most important one. It will appear on EVERY post or comment you make, unless you direct otherwise. You do not have to set a default icon, but most people do. Using the same icon most or all the time makes it easier for people to recognize you online. It is like your "face" on Dreamwidth, even if it is not a photo or illustration of you personally. On your Manage Icons page, under each icon is a button that you can click to set that as your default icon. See below for a discussion on how to manage your icons.

There are different strategies for choosing icons, based on different content and purposes. Bear in mind that 100x100 pixels is not a very big space -- about the size of a postage stamp -- so think carefully when selecting images to make sure they are easy to see at that size.

* You -- Your icon can look like yourself. It may be made from a photo, an automatic art generator, a custom illustration, or whatever. This is a great way to make yourself recognizable online. However, some people feel that it doesn't offer enough privacy. One way to do this is to modify your base image: "my fursona," "me as an elf," or whimsical filters that manipulate images automatically, such as by adding emoji eyes or animal ears.

* Your Favorite Things -- Your icon can look like someone or something you love, rather than yourself. Many people have icons of their cat, a favorite character, a hobby, etc. This is a great choice if you frequently blog about those things: use a cat icon for posts about your pets, a Star Trek icon for your fanfic, and so on.

* Quotes -- Your icon can show text instead of a picture. Lots of icons have funny (or serious, or whatever) phrases on them. You can also add text as a title or caption to an image.

* Animation -- Your icon can show a set of several still images, sort of like a cartoon with several panels that it goes through in order; or it can be fully animated like a tiny movie several seconds long. These are much harder to make, but very impressive.

People use their icons for different purposes, especially if they have a whole bunch uploaded. These include but are not limited to:

* Recognition. Your icon(s) will let other people tell who has made a post or comment. This works best when using the same icon for most or all of your activity.

* Self-expression. Your icon(s) will tell people about what you like. It can be pretty much anything that fits into 100x100 pixels.

* Mood. Many people don't think the mood dingbats are big enough to read easily, so they have a set of icons to express different moods such as happy, sad, or confused. Some bloggers use lots of these, while others use only a few. I have a custom cartoon of a yawning wolf for the "Tired" mood, which I use a lot.

* Categorization. It's very popular to designate a specific icon for a blogging topic. Someone might have a bird for nature posts, a car for travel posts, a heart for personal posts, and characters to mark their fanfic in different canons. I have custom icons for many but not all of my original series. Look on this post, and you'll see an icon of Po from Kung Fu Panda with the text, "There is now a Level Zero." I use that on my posts about computers, because I'm not actually very good with computers.

Making Icons

There used to be lots of convenient "make an icon" tools online, but these have largely faded away. There are still some online places where you can make, modify, resize, add text to, or otherwise work with images to create an icon. However, they change fairly often as to which ones are available, especially which are free to use without creating an account. So for this, try searching things like "make 100x100 icon" or "resize photo" or "put text on photo" and then "online free" to see what you can find currently.

Most people now seem to make their own icons on their own computer. They use an art or graphics program such as Photoshop to do this. There are various programs available, some free, most expensive. I didn't even have luck searching for these; I kept getting stuff intended for making the computer-button kind of icons instead.

So you can see why lots of bloggers just pick icons from a community where artists post icons for use. See below of a list of such communities on Dreamwidth.

Manage Your Icons

On your Edit Journal page, the Create menu (upper left on that page) has an Upload Icons entry. Click that and you go to a Manage Icons page where you can upload new icons, change your default icon, and do other tasks.

Look at the Upload a New Icon tool on the Upload Icons page. It has some super important fields to fill out beyond just the icon itself.

(So you can FIND your icons.)
Keywords:
Comma-separated list of up to 10 terms you'll use to select this icon. Keywords over 40 characters will be truncated.

(Where you say who made the icon, or other details.)
Comment:
Optional comments about the icon. Credit can go here. For example: "I made this!"

(Please be kind and include at least a basic phrase here for people who can't see clearly.)
Description:
This is an optional description of the picture that will be displayed for people who can't view it, e.g. visually-impaired people using screen readers. Example: "Photo of me in the mirror, holding up camera." Read more about good descriptions.

Icon Communities and Blogs

Icons are super popular on Dreamwidth. Lots of people make them as a hobby. Some are posted randomly, some in sets; and there are artists who will do commissions free, for barter, or for pay.

Many individual bloggers post icons, and some have a whole blog just for the icons they make. To find these, go to the Interests page and type "Icons" into the search box. Then scroll down to Search results for "icons" and click Users Only to get a list of individual bloggers.

If you click Communities Only, that will get you a list of communities that include "icons" among their Interests on their Profile.

You can post and/or find icons to use, or find materials to make icons, in communities such as these:

1wonderment -- A graphics resource community
A graphics resource community where you can find icon bases, textures, and tutorials.
[Active with multiple posts in January.]

capshare -- Welcome to Cap Share, a screencap-sharing community! This community has a focus on hand-selected caps that are ideal for graphics, such as icons or picspams, or similar types of things. All images are welcome, whether screencaps, comic book or manga panels/scans, or high quality promotional stills.
[Active with multiple posts in November 2023.]

fandom_icons -- Icons for all your different fandom needs.
[Highly active with daily posts in January.]

graphics -- Banners, Headers, Icons, Wallpapers & More!
Community Description: All Purpose graphics community
[Active with one post in January.]

historium -- A central community for all historical fandoms
Community Description: Historical fandom activities and promotions
This is a place for posting and linking to any historical fic, icons, art, links, recs, reviews, meta, news, fanworks of any type, useful resources, discussion, community & event promos. If it's to do with a historical fandom, whether RPF or fictional, then it's welcome here. For fanworks, all ratings are fine.
As 'history' is a very wide fandom, this community is also intended to help people find like-minded souls and gauge interest in setting up more specific communities/friending etc. (but it's always fine to interact here). It's also a place for historical fandoms too small/obscure to have their own spaces.
[Somewhat active with last post in May 2023.]

hourlyprompts -- Hourly Prompts
Writing and art prompts for every hour of the day.
[Active with one post in January.]

hp_fanworks -- Home for Harry Potter Fanworks
Community Description: A place for all Harry Potter fanworks. We take art, icons, fiction, fanmixes, podfic and more.
[Active with one post in November 2023.]

icon_resources -- Textures, Brushes & Other Resources
Community for sharing icon (and other) resources (textures, brushes, etc.).
[Somewhat active with last post in May 2023.]

iconbattles -- icons - battle style!
[Somewhat active with last post in October 2023.]

iconographers -- Icon updates, graphics, commissions, and other dw icon resources.
[Highly active with daily posts in January.]

iconic -- A collaborative effort to proliferate high quality icons. Translation: Get/Share awesome icons!
[Active with one post in January.]

icons -- A Community to share Icons.
[Active with daily posts in January.]

iconthat -- Icon making challenge community for all fandoms and everyone.
[Active with one post in January.]

photocons -- Icons made from photography.
For icons or graphics made from photography. Banners, headers and wallpapers welcome!
[Somewhat active with last post in September 2021.]

resourcelove -- Share & Request Graphics, Brushes & Resources
This community provides a place for people to post all kinds of graphic-making resources. Made some brushes you want to share? Found a good font site? Taken some screencaps for others to use? Post 'em here!
Any and all kinds of graphic-making resources are welcome here. Brushes, fonts, gradients, caps, bases, textures, layouts, tutorials, anything you can think of. HTML and override help is great too. Post it all.
[Somewhat active with last post in October 2023.]

smallbatchicons -- small batch icons
Multi-fandom icon community - 5 icons on a theme
[Active with multiple posts in December 2023.]

vc_media -- a Vampire Chronicles community
The Vampire Chronicles fandom is more than a load of banned writings by persecuted spec authors! There are less verboten things like icons, fanart, film news and rumours, essays and reviews. Isn't it terrible how one has to dig around to find these things? Are you worried that you're missing out on a Louis/Lestat portrait, or an analysis of why Benji must die?
Worry no longer! The aim of this community is to collate pieces of VC-related media for us fans. Posting access is open to everyone to share fic, icons, artwork, and news items related to the Vampire Chronicles. You are also allowed to pimp your own fic, artwork, icons, etc.
[Active with multiple posts in December 2023.]