Picking your icon is probably the single most important part of preparing an application for release. It needs to be memorable and evoke some idea of what the software is for. A great icon should look good when displayed either large or small, and in general, tiny details should be avoided or only used for unimportant aspects of the design. Make sure that your icon is created at a high resolution; 1024 x 1024 pixels is the minimum requirement for an icon to look great on the widest variety of devices. It's also important to consider the use of transparency—depending on the platforms you wish to distribute to, this may or may not be recommended. Most desktop systems allow the use of shaped icons, but not all will allow semi-transparent areas.

Take some time to look at popular or commonplace icons on each of the operating systems or desktop environments where you expect your application to be used. Can you match your icon style to each of them successfully? Does it seem like a particular shape or style will be expected by users of these systems? It may be best, or necessary, to create different versions of the graphic for different platforms. Doing so is not a problem, and can be accommodated by passing different icons to the build tools we work with later.