How to Design a Speedometer Icon in Photoshop

Now we can make visible all our below layers and to pick up a nice color for our indicator. I´m going to use a very bright blue: #24fffc. This is just a matter of preferences and since we created vector shapes we can easily change their color in the future if we want to.

Now we´re going to scale our shapes down to make them fit inside our Dark Area using our “Light_Ambient” layer as the boundries of our transfotmation like so. Remember to hold down SHIFT and ALT keys while scaling

Now to get rid of the extra indicator at the bottom of our icon we can use 2 different techniques. We already saw how aLayer Mask can be very handy for that kind of visibility operations. However and since this two layers are pure vector shapes, we can take benefit of the tools provided by Photoshop to modify and transform shapes forms within Vector Layers. I´m going to show you this other technique.

First thing we need to do is to hide our “meter_shape02″ to have a cleaner vision of what we´re doing. Now we make sure our vector thumbnail from our “meter_shape01″ layer is selected (once again click on it and you will notice how the different contours of the vector content from layer are highlighted). Now we select the PEN TOOL by selecting it from the tools panel or by clicking the P KEY. Like we did when we substract the circle from our meter in the last step we need to set the PEN TOOL to that same behaviour and ensure that Shape Layers and not just Paths are selected as the default way the tool draw the objects.

Now, and once again using our guides and the boundries of our canvas as a reference we´re going to draw a triangle, starting from the center, then going to the bottom-left corner of our canvas, then to the bottom-right and finally by returning to the center of our guides like so:

Now, if you followed the instructions I provided for the degree rotation when creating our meter_shapes you will notice that there´s a little portion at the left-bottom and right-bottom parts of our indicator that aren´t totally hiden. You may consider that this could be a cool addition to the icon and you may want to leave it this way. However, for demonstration porpueses and going to get rid of those little squares too, just to show you how Direct Selection works inside Vector Layers composed by mutiple shapes.

So now, with our Vector Shapes still active we select our DIRECT SELECTION TOOL again (the white arrow) and we draw a nice selection of the bottom part of our triangle. This way we ensure we´re not selecting any other shape contained into the layer. Now we press CTRL/OPT+T to access the TRANSFORM TOOL and then by right-clicking we select the Scale option from the pop up menu.

Now we can transfrom its width by moving the horizontal sliders while holding the ALT KEY to force the transformation to start from the center or, as explained above, by setting around 105% the values for the width transformation in theTRANSFORM TOOL menu at the top of our window.

Now, depending on the rotation settings you used to create the “meter_shapes”, you may want or not to repeat this for the “meter_shape02″ layer. I think it looks just fine this way so I will leave “meter_shape02″ as it is but, again, it is up to you now you know the tecnique. Your icon should look like this:

Step 13: Creating the Icon – The Arrow Holder

Ok, now it is time to take care of the part that will hold our future arrow in the center of the icon. First we need to do is to select the ELIPSE TOOL and to set the Foreground Color to White – #FFFFFF. Now, and as usual, we´ll use our guides as a reference to draw a circle holding SHIFTand ALT keys while dragging from the center of our guides. Make it around 75px Wwide and high but this, of course, will depend if you´re creating a 512x512px or not. Otherwise, make it nicely proportioned with the rest of the icon. We may name this new layer “center_wheel_big”. Now we change its Layer Style like so:

Now we´re going to duplicate this “center_wheel_big” and rename it to “center_wheel_small” and using theTRANSFORM TOOL and as usual by holding SHIFT and ALT keys we´re going to scale down this new layer to around 20%. Now we´re going to change its blending mode from the current ones to just a Bevel and Emboss effect like this:

Now we select both, “center_wheel_big” and “center_wheel_small” and by holding SHIFT key we´re going to move down a little these two layers having in mind we have to leave enough room for the arrow we´re about to create. New position should be something like this:

Once we move our “center_wheel” shapes we can group them inside a folder and call this new folder “meter wheel” or something that just make sense to you. Now we´re going to add some subtle style to each one of the layers. Go to theLayer Style window for any of the two layers and insert the following values. Once we´ve accepted the modification we just can copy the Layer Style by right-clicking the layer from the layers panel and chossing Copy Layer Style and paste it to the other “meter_shape” layer by right-clikcing this second layer and chossing Paste Layer Style from the pop up menu

Step 14: Creating the Icon – Adding the Numbers

Now I think it would a good idea to add the numbers all around our Dark Area. Once we add them we´ll have a clearest idea about how room we have to add our arrow and how big it needs to be. So, like previous steps, this could be different for you depending on the font and the size you choose for the numbers. For this tutorial I´m going to useMyriad Pro Semibold as the font at 12px for the size and with a -40 for the letter tracking. I´m using the same color we applied to the “meter_shape” layers #24fffc.

It is up to you how many numbers you add and the difference between the values from one to another, just keep all numbers nicely aligned at the sides and evently distributed all across their way. Pay attention to for example the difference between two and three digits numbers and how this affect its position and alignment. Keep explorig until you find something you feel it´s working with the rest of the icon. I ended with this distribution:

Once we have our numbers aligned we can apply some glowing. Just select any number and go:

Like we did before we now can copy the Layer Style from this modified number and copy it to the others by selecting them all at once and chosing Paste Layer Style from the pop up menu that will show up.

Step 15: Creating the Icon – The Arrow

Now we´re going to create a new folder and name it “arrow” . We place it just below our “center Wheel” folder and hide this last folder to have a better view of our working process. We set our Foreground Color to a nice and vivid red like#f71d1d and pick the PEN TOOL. Then we draw an rectangled triangle using the numbers we just created and our vertical guide as a reference and placing its hipothenus side in the opposite side of our vertical gide like so:

Now with our PEN TOOL still selected if we press and hold CTRL/OPT KEY we have access to the DIRECT SELECTION TOOL which can be used to easily reshape our vector form and set appropiate proportions to our arrow. In convination with the TRANSFORM TOOL we can scale, reposition, rotate and reshape our arrow until we find a position and a shape we´re comfortable looking at and that fits with the overall look of our icon. Since we´re manipulating a vector object we´re not going to lose any quality in the process, no matter how many times we transform our shape.

I did a little reshape to make it more simetric and also rotate it to make the arrow point at middle-lower values. I placed the arrow as follows:

Now we rename this layer to “arrow_shape01″ and apply the following Layer Style to it:

Now we duplicate our “arrow_shape01″, rename it to “arrow_shape02″ and we place it below our “arrow_shape01″. Now we clear its Layer style change its color to a darker red like #d20000 and move it by hitting the LEFT ARROW KEY once and the DOWN ARROW KEY twice from our keyboard

Now we´re going to add some lighting to our arrow by selecting the POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL ( L KEY ) and we´re going to create a selection like this:

Now we create a new layer above our “arrow_shape01″, name it “arrow_light”, press the D KEY, then X KEY to get back to our default colors and to set our Foreground Color to white, then we switch to the GRADIENT TOOL and with the following settings we draw a gradient like so:

Deselect your current selection. Now CTRL/OPT+CLICK on the thumb from the “arrow_shape01″ (the one is on top) and press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert the selection, then hit BACKSPACE to clear those pixels. Now we low the opacity of this layer down to around 50%. We can make visible our “center wheel” folder now. Your image should look like this:

Step 16: Creating the Icon – The Counter

In this step we´re about to create the counter that displays the numbers simaluating a total count of whatever your meter is counting. First thing we need to do is to create a new folder and name it “counter” and place it above all existing layers. This is where our layers for this part will lay. It should be a good idea to hide our “center wheel” and “arrow” folders.

Now we change our Foregound Color to #111111, select the RECTANGLE TOOL and, using our guides as a reference point, draw a nice and proportioned rectangle by holding down ALT key while draggind our shape. Make it around 150px wide and 30px high like so:

Now go to add some Layer Style using the following values:

Rename this layer to “counter_shape01″ and duplicate it. Then rename the duplicated one to “counter_shape02″. We leave it above our “counter_shape01″. Now we set its fill to 0% and change its Layer Style to the following:

We can now make visible our below layers and, while holding the SHIFT KEY, move down the “counter” folder to an appropiate posotion like so:

Again I´m going to use Myriad Pro Semibold font for the numbers inside the counter. This time at 11px and with a letter tracking of around +130 to leave enough room for the sepearators we´re about to create. I entered 8 numbers and as usual we can take benefit of the TRANSFORM TOOL to align the row of numbers at the middle of the canvas (and the counter shape too). Now for the numbers we´re going to add the following Layer Style:

Now your image shoudl look like this:

Final step is to add the separators between the numbers. To do that we´re going to set our Foreground Color to #ffffffand we´re going to select the line tool, setting its weight to 1px. Now holding SHIFT KEY and between our first two numbers we´re going to draw a line using or “counter_shape” as a reference for its height. We can name this new layer to “single_separator01″.

Now we´re going to press CTRL/OPT+T to acces the TRANSFORM TOOL and holding down the ALT KEY we´re going to scale down its height to around 80%.

Now we´re going to add some layer style to our separator:

Now we´re going to repeat this process to create the other separators by duplicating our “single_separator01″ keeping an eye on the amount of space between numbers and ensuring we align each new separator at the middle of that space. Your image should look like this:

Step 17: Creating the Icon – Adding some more Lighting Details

We´re very close to finish the icon, actually we are not going to add any more objects to it. Instead, we´re going to make our icon more interesting by adding some more lighting details.

First we need to create a new layer between our “arrow” and “center wheel” folders and name it “light_focus”. This layer visibility will affect the arrow and all layers below but not our “center wheel” objects and above layers so this way we can play a little more with shadows and lights we already created for some of the objects laying on top of this layer.

Now we´re going to select our BRUSH TOOL again and with #ffffff color selected and with a brush diameter of around 300px and a hardness of 0%, we´re going to make a single click at more or less the following postition:

Now we change the Blending Mode for this layer from Normal to Overlay and we set the opacity down to around 50%. Now, and as seen in previous steps, we´re going to CRTL/OPT+CLICK on our “base_black” layer, then pressCTRL/OPT+SHIFT+I to invert the selection and hit BACKSPACE to remove the possible extra pixels going out of bounds our Dark Area.

Now your image should like like this:

Good!. Now we could add some inner shadow to the Dark Area of our icon where the numbers and all the meter elements are laying. To do that we´re going to create a new layer just in top of all current layers and name it “inner_shadow”. We could just use the Inner Shadow effect from the Layer´s Style but we´re going to create our own effect by making some brushing instead. The reason for this is that the pre-made effect from Photoshop is too much perfect in my opinion since it is all generated from the edges to the center. We can make some tweeking to it but to get the effect we´re looking for we want our icon to look iluminated with some irregularities and to achieve that effect we want our shadow to be more “imperfect”.

So, once again, we CTRL+CLICK on our “base_black” layer, select the “BRUSH TOOL” and with our Foreground Colorset to #000000 and a Diameter of around 300px and a Hardness of 0% for our tool, we start brushing all around our icon like so:

Once we finish the brushing we can now press CTRL/OPT+D to deselect our current selection and set the Blending Mode for this layer from Normal to Soft Light leaving its Transparency at 100%. Now your image should look like something similar to this:

Last thing is to add our main shadow, the one will simulate that the icon is standing on an surface generating its own shadow as a reaction of the lighting is coming from above. So, to do that, we´re going to create a new layer at the top of our locked Background layer and name it “main_shadow”. Now we select the ELIPTICAL MARQUEE TOOL and using our guides as a reference and holding the ALT KEY we draw our selection from the center to the sides like so:

Now holding SHIFT KEY we can move our selection to the bottom of our icon. For now, make the bottom the selection to match the bottom of the icon. With our Foreground Color set to #000000 we select the PAINT BUCKET TOOL by selecting it from the Tools Panel or by pressing the G KEY and we click over our selection to fill it with black.

Now we can deselect our current selection and go Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur… and set the value for the RADIUS about 10px. We click Ok and go Filter/Blur/Motion Blur…and this time we choose 0 degress for the ANGLE and about 120 for the DISTANCE and click OK. Now we can move down our shadow to show up a little more of the darkest area at the center. Now if we press CTRL/OPT+T we can see something to keep an eye on:

Notice where our TRANSFORM TOOL is drawing the boundries of our shadow?. It is indicating that our shadow is getting out of bounds of our canvas and that means if we save the icon as it is, specially as a PNG, that little part of the shadow placed outside our canvas will cause our icon to appear cutted at the bottom. This is a very common mistake when dealing with icon shadows and it is always a good practice to make sure our bottom shadows are not exceding the limits of the canvas even when they look just fine. Most of the shadows are very subtle at their endings and it´s easy to not to see that cropping issue until you export your icon as PNG.

Ok, so to fix this we´re just going to scale down a little our shadow using our TRANSFORM TOOL box to fit the shadow into the boundries of our canvas. Now you´re image should look like this:

Step 18: Creating the Icon – Final Touches

Now we could add the text that will indicate in some way the kind of meter we´re looking at. I originally created this icon as a server traffic indicator and I used the words “SERVER TRAFFIC and KPS” to make it more obvious but you can use your own creativity or imagination to make the icon indicates whatever you wish to show. For the text I usedMyriad Pro Semibold font, all caps and this time at 3,16 px and placed at the center of the icon using my guides as a reference. I set the paragraph style to align text at the center as well. I putted these text layers inside a folder calles “text”. I also moved the text down a bit for a better positioning just like so:

We´re almost done!. The last step of this tutorial is very important. We´ve spent a lot of time creating the shapes, aligning them correctly and making the icon to look proportioned and nice but we didn´t pay much attention to one of the most important things when creating icons: COLOR.

Now, since we´re not going to make use of the guides anymore we can just press CTRL/OPT+H to hide them and to have a better view of the adjustments we´re about to do.

Let´s make our icon more vivid and easy to the eyes by just adding some adjustment layers in combination with layer masking. One of the advantatges of this way of working is that you can easily modify the global appearance of your icon without the need of go looking for specific layers to change the color for a certain effect or shape

So, first we´re going to create a new folder just at the top of all our existing layers and name it “color adjustment”. Now and for the last time we´re going to CRTL/OPT+CLICK on the “base_black” layer to create a selection of the Dark Area of our icon where the main color adjustment will occur. Now inside the folder we just created we´re going to click theAdd layer mask button located at the bottom part of our layers panel

Now we´re going to add a new Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer by clicking on the Create new Fill or Adjustment Layer button located at the right from the previous Add layer mask button. We select Brightness and Contrast from the pop up menu. Now we´re going to set the BRIGHTNESS value to around 30 and the CONTRAST to around 60.

Now we´re going add a levels adjustment layer by repeating the previous process but this time choosing Levels from the Create new Fill or Adjustment Layer menu. This setting may differ if you are using different colors for your numbers and “meter wheel” shapes. Since we used a light blue color in this tutorial we want our icon to look a little “bluish” simulating that some light is emerging from the icon and it is affected by the color of the inside elements. So for this new Levels Layer we´re going to use the following values: RGB channel should be set around 8, 1 and 238 for the first, second and thrid slider respectively. for the RED CHANNEL should be around 11, 1, 255, GREEN CHANNEL will remain untouched and for the BLUE CHANNEL we go 0, 1, 240.

Now if you followed along this tutorial using the same settings your final image should look something similar to this:

Step 19: Conclusion

Besides the creation of the icon, my intention with this turotial was to show you some principles and good practices when facing icon design. First is to keep all your shapes correctly aligned using guides and by making transform operations percentually using the tool that Photoshop is offering to us.

Another good practice is to keep your work as much simple as you can, and to use all the nice features Photoshop has like we did with our personalized action. They only thing we need to know is what we want to achieve and which tools can make our life easier to make our idea happen.