Vista Icons are icons inspired on Windows Vista, Microsoft's most popular Operative System. Aero is the characteristic desktop theme attached to this OS; this theme contains a high quality design, bringing to the User Interface things like Dynamic Reflexes and Animations, features which weren't available in previous OS. In addition, vectorial drawings were created with Direct X and XAML, making a major improvement graphically speaking.

Aero's icons are characterized by being colorful and bright, besides, a glass-like finished added to shadows makes them have a 3D look. The image of the icons wasn't completely redone, they basically took their usual icons and enhanced them with these characteristics in order to achieve a better graphic user interface. inspired on this properties to design its own vista icons, as the ones below:

Do you remember Windows 98 icons? If you're too young you might not, it's been already 10 years since it was released, but here's a screenshot for you to remember what they looked like:

The we got Windows XP and a drastic transformation on our icons. They had better designs and looked much better on our desktops but there was still something missing.

Then came Vista, which icons are seriously improved, and which style will not only give applications a more dynamic look, but it will also enhance the user experience.

Giving your icons these kind of effects is not difficult. We can find a lot of software which allows us to change an image, or in this case an icon. In order to make bright spots or shadows we can use Photoshop; give it a try, it will, combined with perspective, surely enhance your graphics.

Perspective is a technique which allows us to represent a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional plane. The first thing we need to do in order to apply perspective to our icon, is to define a horizon line. This line represents the moment where sky meets the land and varies depending on the line of vision of the viewer. In this line, we locate a vanishing point. Have you noticed that when you look very far away parallel lines tend to intersect? Well, a vanishing point is the point in our two-dimensional space where they actually intersect.

Vista Icons also use a specific type of lightning, colors and saturation. Lightning is the perfect complement for shadows, and helps to improve the 3D look that wants to be achieved. The Lightning source used in almost every single vista icon is located at the top left corner.

These icons are considered as a great graphic design improvement, they helped to get by the static icons giving applications a more dynamic look, becoming very attractive to customers.
Right now Microsoft is developing their new OS, Windows 7, hopefully we'll get more of these design advances. Right now you can check previews. A change is definitely noticeable. Do you think Seven Icons will be as important in icon design as vista icons are right now?