Pictos Icon Font Server

#1

Post by enra » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 12:17 AM UTC

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#2

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 12:47 AM UTC

Using a font to provide icons on your website. It appears that the Pictos way is a font-replacement method using js? My first thought is that this should be relatively easy to replicate using http://thenounproject.com (or similar) as the source of the icons.

I like the idea: kind of an extension of sprites to using the font file as the sprite holder; not sure if that's any more efficient though due to the cross-browser issues of webfonts.

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#3

Post by enra » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 1:01 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #2

Using a font to provide icons on your website. It appears that the Pictos way is a font-replacement method using js? My first thought is that this should be relatively easy to replicate using http://thenounproject.com (or similar) as the source of the icons. I like the idea: kind of an extension of sprites to using the font file as the sprite holder; not sure if that's any more efficient though due to the cross-brows…

It's a custom font set, using css @font-face like Typekit, and Google Fonts are for example.

So so just like characters in a font, the icons can use the same text effects like any other text, like size, coloring, gradients, text-shadows and etc, which can save you a lot of time and maybe bandwidth too.

We used Pictos fontset on our RailsRumble app (http://splendidbacon.com) a while back and it was much better and faster experience for me, than building the different icon colors & sizes in Photoshop like usually.

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#4

Post by teeny » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 1:23 AM UTC

It's a cool idea; but why they are using a png sprite for the icons on their own site?

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#5

Post by blakeperdue » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:03 AM UTC

teeny wrote: post #4

It's a cool idea; but why they are using a png sprite for the icons on their own site?

Yeah, very strange that they wouldn't want to show off their product by actually using on their site.

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#6

Post by jakozaur » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:19 AM UTC

The client list seems to be impressive, but I haven't seen those icons on any mentioned customer... is it true at all?

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#7

Post by hhastings » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:24 AM UTC

Pictos & Pictos Font have been around for a while, and my bet is that the vast majority of UX/UI Designers know of Drew Wilson's work. This is an extremely clever solution for an age old problem: As designers, we can now enable our clients to swap out icons to match their updated text/copy content.

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#8

Post by cemregr » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 2:37 AM UTC

Drew is one of the most prolific designer/developers around. I wonder if he ever sleeps. You should check out his other projects too: http://drewwilson.com/

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#9

Post by resnamen » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 3:41 AM UTC

What are the advantages in using a remote service for this vs. hosting them yourself? I'm somewhat averse to taking out additional dependencies on other services if no compelling reason exists.

Re: Pictos Icon Font Server

#10

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 21, 2012, 3:49 AM UTC

[deleted]