You do not need to be a Photoshop pro or Iconist  to create a simple icon.  Just have an idea of what you want to create and start from there. In this post we are showing you how to create a simple twitter icon for your blog or website in six easy steps.

First lets see what we are creating.

I am assuming you know how to install patterns in photoshop. Also the PSD is available to download at the end of the post.

Here are the resources you need to download.

• Techie Patterns for Photoshop
• Vector Twitter Icon
• Twitter Font ( via Bitrebels Thanks Richard)

We are creating a 128x 128 icon. If you want the icon to resizeable it is a good idea to create the icon in Illustrator. For the purpose of this tutorial we are going to stick to Photoshop

Step 1:

Open up a new document in Photoshop 128×128, transparent background.

Step 2:

Select rounded rectangle tool from the shape menu.

Step 3:

Draw a rectangle shape as shown on the picture. Use ruler if you need to.

Step 4:

Now use the Path selection Tool ( Keyboard Shortcut “A”) to select the shape. Right click on mouse to get the drop down menu. You should see “Make Section” option. When you select/click that option the rectangle shape now should be turned into selection.

Step 5:

Now the exciting part. We are going to fill up the rectangle selection. The color selection completely depends on you. You can choose  different colors to match your preferences and your websites color scheme. Here is foreground #63d2f4 and background #10b8ec

Select the Gradient tool. Fill up the rectangle with gradient. Hold the Shift key if you want the gradient to be straight.

We are going to use Pattern Overlay from Layer Style. You can access it by Double clicking on the layer or Going to Layer>Layer Style> Pattern Overlay on Photoshop menu. Below is Pattern I choose. The used pattern link is mentioned above , but you can choose any kind of patterns you want.

Keep the opacity to low so the background is not too dark. Here is my result. It is zoomed 200%

Step 6

Now we are going chose Pico (T1) Font Black Al, with white font color and center the font or arrange the way you want. You have a simple twitter icon already! You can stop here if you want. Here is the result:

Lets make a different version. Choose the font color to #2cb7e2 . This is makes the “t” it almost same color as background.

Apply the following Stroke and Inner shadow from Layer Style.

Stroke: Give the “t” white outline. 4px

Inner Shadow: for the inset effect.

Here is the result:

So there, you have it.  A simple yet nice looking twitter icon. I also created one with bird instead of the text. For the bird style just paste the vector bird and change the color and style as you like.

Experiment with the layer styles and come up with your own unique style.

You can download the PSD from following links:
Twitter Icon PSD | Mirror