IconWorkshop has been touted by its publisher as an icon specialty application, but Icon Workshop can do a lot more than simply create icons.
Introduction
IconWorkshop from Axalis is a different kind of application. In the company’s own words:
“Axialis IconWorkshop is a professional tool designed to create, extract, convert, manage and redistribute all Windows® icons (including latest Vista® PNG compressed icons) and Macintosh® icons. It has a fully integrated workspace that permits you to work efficiently and create high-quality icons in minutes. “
But that doesn’t really do justice to what it’s really like and if, like me, you’re not much of an artist in the “drawing” sense of the word, IconWorkshop is an application you’ve got to try out.
| Performance | Rating  |
What's Hot:
No matter what I did with IconWorkshop, I didn’t have a noticeable slow-down on the machine in question. As usual, I tried different operations on my main desktop (Athalon 64 2.2Ghz with 3GB RAM) and laptop (Celeron 1.5Ghz with 512MB RAM). No surprise that it ran better on the desktop. The slowest operation was using the Explorer to scan all the drives and partitions on each machine. I’m certain this operation hinges more on drive size because it was faster on the laptop than on the desktop despite the desktop’s better stats.
| Price to Value | Rating |
What's Hot: This is an odd point of interest; if you buy the $69.95 corporate license which lets you compile icons and distribute them for commercial and profit purposes and also permits you to create icons for commercial applications, then it’s a tremendous deal.
What's Not:
If you buy the $39.95 Personal Edition which doesn't permit you to compile installable icon packages, or use them in a profit or commercial way, like on a website (basically you can only customize Windows) then it’s not much of a deal at all. It’s still a fun toy, but I don’t see the value in this license option
| Installation & Setup | Rating |
What's Hot: IconWorkshop comes as an .exe file and weighs in at around 14MB. Most of that weight probably comes because of the extensive library and objects that are pre-loaded into it. Installation is short and sweet.
IconWorkshop installs with minimal options such as where you want it installed, whether you want desktop and quick launch icons, etc.
On your first run of IconWorkshop it asks about file associations, allows for entry of your product key, and prompts you to register. Get this; if you do register the product you get free upgrades for life. That’s a heck of an incentive in my opinion.
The installer dialogs are very simple and attractive, not something that really matters I guess, since ugly installers could work as well as pretty ones, but this installer’s attractive interface is a harbinger of things to come.
| User Interface | Rating |
What's Hot: The user interface in IconWorkshop is one of the best I’ve ever seen in any application. It’s truly a work of art from the layout and visual appearance to the efficiency of design. Everything you need at every point in the icon creation process is right there where you expect it to be. I can honestly say that IconWorkshop's UI is something that software application designers should look at as an example.
It’s so well designed and attractive that it provides a level of comfort even when you run IconWorkshop for the very first time. There is absolutely nothing confusing or unsettling about it.
What's Not: The only thing I could possibly wish for is that the effects in the Object library were more “visible”. For instance; say you’re looking through the library for things like circle effect, various shadows, shines, or whatnot. You will have a hard time figuring out which is which since these effects are often very subtle and they’re displayed in a thumbnail type format with the universal “checkerboard” background that indicates transparency. I think it would be best handled adding a visual representation of the effect in the description pop-up that’s already present, the visual should be against a contrasting color to the effect.
| Product Features | Rating |
What's Hot: Features are what IconWorkshop is all about and within the single UI you’ve got access to a host of options. The Editor allows you to modify, create, and save icons in every format imaginable. The Explorer enables you to search your entire system for icons, images, and other assets including vector artwork. The Library is the easy way to enter into the “Object Packs” which are the backbone to IconWorkshop's greatness. By using the objects you can create endless combinations of shapes, tune their color, add effects, and other operations.
For someone who doesn’t want to “draw” their own artwork, these Object Packs are a godsend. Hundreds of objects are already installed into the application, and if you want more, just click help/ Download Object Packs, and the web page to download them is opened right inside the UI’s main pane. These Object Packs download as .exe files and when you execute them they install the requisite files into the right directory structure. Therefore, the main application knows right where they are and you don’t even have to restart the application to see or use them.
It’s really incredible, and it’s obvious that the work that went into these Object Packs alone was significant. I downloaded all the Object Packs (requires a product key number) and now I’ve got literally thousands of objects that I can cobble together to create some of the nicest icons I’ve ever seen, let alone made. I guess you can tell that the “Object” paradigm is my favorite feature and since the icon projects can be outputted as 256x256 .PNG files, they’re going to be great for web page type graphics. I can foresee importing them into Fireworks and using them in web page graphics layouts.
Beyond the obvious editing, organization, and exporting features, you will also find something that may surprise you; a facility to package up your icon projects and collections and “lock” them, whereby the end user needs an unlock code that IconWorkshop will also generate. If you’re a serious artist or serious about selling or tightly distributing icons, you would probably want this feature, even if you never knew it existed before finding this product. What I glean from this feature is the depth of thought that went into IconWorkshop at every point of its design.
| Help & Support | Rating |
What's Hot: IconWorkshop is well above average in terms of support. In my opinion support is more than just helping customers who have a problem or a question. It’s about giving the customers the tools and information they need to make the most of an application and use it to the fullest extent that they can.
From the Help menu there’s access to the typical .CHM type of Windows help manual, which is atypically well written. There’s access to a FAQ page that opens right in the main pane of the application, as well as a user forum, the ability to get updates (requires registration), and the ability to contact the company for support. Other items of customer convenience such as “my account” and “download objects” are located there as well. Virtually every selection from the Help menu opens in the main pane of IconWorkshop except for the CHM Help files. Also, there are currently 33 tutorials on the company’s web site specific to the IconWorkshop application.
To be perfectly honest, the depth and level of the Help menu is actually more than this app requires, but it’s another instance where you can obviously tell the level of thought and work that went into Icon Workshop. It’s clear that the developers truly love it and take it very seriously.
What's Not: While the company has gone to great lengths to provide top-notch support in the broadest sense of the word, there didn’t seem to be a PDF manual, which is a shame since this is one of those programs that I’d print the manual for.
Suggested Features
The only possible thing I could recommend as a feature for IconWorkshop would be to add a contrasting background to the effects thumbnails within the expanded description popup that appears when hovering over the library thumbnail; something like an ugly chroma-key green would work well.
Conclusion
I’m totally in love with IconWorkshop. I can definitely see using it for a lot more than its intended purpose of creating icons. I’m going to use it in concert with Fireworks for sure. I’m the type of guy who doesn’t like doing “artwork” but loves doing layout. I can definitely enhance graphic layouts with artwork that even I can build up in the IconWorkshop with ease. Once the objects are all stacked up, enhanced with effects, and exported as PNG files, there’s a whole world of possibilities available.
If you’re a graphic artist you’ll be glad to know that IconWorkshop includes plug-ins for Photoshop and Illustrator. Therefore, if you can actually draw, you’ve got an excellent partner application to the Adobe graphics app you use for your main workflow.