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Creating vector icons with DrawingBrush

Time: 01:48 EST/06:48 GMT | News Source: LonghornBlogs | Posted By: Jonathan Tigner

OK, creating icons in today's world sucks... First I have to create multiple sizes of icons 16x, 24x, 32x 48x, 64x, etc. Even when I go through all the trouble of making sure I have all the different dimensions of the icons I need, I still run the risk of my icons being mangled when they show up on a monitor running a different DPI (with high dpi monitors on their way, this is becoming more and more of an issue).

Creating vector icons with DrawingBrush is a way that I get around the problems of needing multiple resolution and multiple dimension icons. DrawingBrush allows me to basically combine a bunch of vector shapes and then define them as a brush resource that I can paint the Fill, Background properties on elements. This is really convenient when I want to get the benefit of using vectors if I want my strokes and shapes to always proportionally scale and I don't mind if the vectors don't intelligently resize or if the strokes become distorted when stretching and scaling. This is typically the behavior I expect when I am using graphical elements like clipart and icons.