Most applications today call for the creation of readily identifiable icons, whether they appear on the desktop, a web-based application or the growing range of mobile devices.

An icon is a powerful marketing tool to help establish a brand while streamlining the user experience, reducing clutter on the screen, improving the aesthetics and functionality of an application.

Whatever the software development project, an application regularly calls for a combination of competency in graphic design and a creative flair to create powerful and memorable icons.

Mitrais calls on several specially trained staff to bring such a combination to bear on projects, large and small.

Demand for icon development comes from a broad range of Mitrais clients but in recent times has been strongest from those in the mining, resource and facility management sectors.

For example, Mitrais designers gave a 3D look to more than 50 icons used in the main menu and toolbars of a specialized mining industry application, a new release of which was to be launched on the .NET platform. Adobe Illustrator was used to create the vector based images and Axialis software to convert images into icon files.

The same software tools were deployed for another client who commissioned Mitrais to update the product logo for a mine planning application in line with a renewed corporate logo and identity.

The development brief called for the Mitrais designer to produce a range of icon sizes to support Windows Vista and Windows 7 icon standards.

Enhanced user experience through quality icons is just one of the benefits which have been achieved in a building management application developed by Mitrais.

For this application Mitrais designers chose a combination of Adobe Illustrator for vector images and Adobe Photoshop for raster based images. This industry standard software delivers high quality results and reads and exports to a wide range of image formats.