Please note, this post is a sponsored review of IconGalore.com. If you would like to purchase your own objective review, please contact me. Only products and services that will be beneficial to the readers will be considered.
Go a step above
If you take a look around the web, or your desktop for that matter, you will notice that most apps and sites you see fall into two basic categories: polished and not-so-much. Two sites can do the exact same thing, but if one has a more professional look and feel, then, odds are, it will be more successful. Apple is the ultimate example. The ipod wasn’t the first portable music player, but it has something that the others simply didn’t have…panache and style.
When you are building an application (online or off), a great and easy way to add a bit of oomph is to use quality icons. You could make your own, or go and hunt down some free ones on the net, but with either scenario you run into a major snag. Building your own takes a lot of time that your client probably doesn’t want to pay for. On the other hand, if you go look for the freebies then you may find 10 nice icons in a single size that are whatever subject the designer wanted to create that day. When you are making a professional application or website, you need icons that exude that professionalism and come in the correct size (nothing looks sloppier than an icon that has been stretched).
A better way
So what is a savvy developer to do? Use IconGalore. IconGalore is a custom icon shop that makes great web application icons. Say you are building a shnazzy ecommerce site for a client. You need about 50 different icons of various sizes to make the app perfect. If you go to the web you may find 2 nice ones here, 5 there, etc. etc. By the end of your hunt you may find 50 ecommerce icons, but they are in completely random sizes and none of them actually go together…
The better route is to save yourself the hassle and go to IconGalore and spend about $100 and get a whopping 1400+ icons that cover just about every possible need for your site. If, for some reason, you can’t find what you need, then they will design one from scratch for $35. Order one up and they will get it to you in a day or two.
They have over 13,000 icons available in several different package (ranging in price from $100 - $200). If you are on a tighter budget you can get their value sets for around $50 - 100. In all honesty, their “feature” packages are higher quality and give you A LOT more icons for the price so I would recommend saving your pennies and going for one of the bigger packs.
Currently their icons are focused on the “XP style”. They are clear, colorful, and well done. I, personally, would like to see their take on some Vista sets. I am sure they are working on some, but they aren’t available yet.
Service
From a personal standpoint what I like about this company is their service. Over the years I have employed some different custom icon companies and it would sometimes take weeks to get a reply. In one case I emailed the company asking if they had gone out of business or something because they were so slow to respond (true story). Conversely, every time I have corresponded with the IconGalore folks they have been really quick to reply (usually a couple of hours). They even have live chat if you are having an icon emergency (a nice touch if you ask me).
If you want to “try before you buy”, they have some free icons that give you a good feel of all the various sizes and formats (in case you are wondering there are 5 sizes and 6 formats).
All in all I have been impressed with IconGalore. They are polite, quick to respond, and they do good work at a good price. If you are looking to take your app or site up a notch I would recommend their services.
