Special Category May
ANIMALS

Welcome to iAwards, an icon awards community. We are open to all icons, fandom and non-fandom. We'll have one round per month, which gives you a lot of time to find icons to nominate. There are 12 general categories each round, plus one special category that changes every month.

You can find a more detailed version of the guidelines on the user info page. But this is a quick overview:

01 finding icons
scroll down for a list of communities that are updated with hundreds of new icons every day. make sure that you don't nominate more than 1 icon per icon maker.

02 saving icons
create a folder on your computer, save all the icons and add the icon maker to filename. that way you won't forget.

03 uploading icons
perfect way: your own server (find some tools for that here). if you don't have one, use free hosting websites, such as ImageShack.us or Tinypic.com.

04 posting icons
perhaps the trickiest part, because LJ can drive you crazy sometimes! If you prefer the super simple way you can use Template 1 below. Just post the category name, the image code of the icon and the LJ username of the maker.
If you want it to look more organized (or if you're a neat freak like me :) and if you know a bit of HTML you can use Template 2, which uses DIVs and will put all icons of one category next to each other. You're not required to use this, it's just the code I wrote for myself, which I'm now sharing with you :)

PLEASE use an LJ-cut after two or three teaser icons. Thank you!

PLEASE post the username of the ICON MAKER, not the community. It helps, especially if there are many people posting at the same journal. Thank you.

05 nominating icons
I know that sometimes it can be hard to find icons for a specific category. Then I just leave that spot blank and try again a few days later.
And sometimes you have an icon and don't know where to put. It helps if you look at that icon and try to find out what you like most about it. If it made you laugh, nominate it as "funny". Did it make you cry, did you sigh or get puppy eyes, it's probably an "emotional" icon. If that guy on the icon is just looking damn hot, it'll probably be a "best fandom" icon :)

Take a look at the "Category" list for details on all the cats so you can make sure that your icon actually fits into the categories.

06 pimping
no, I don't want you to go around and promote this community (although I wouldn't stop you!). but it is always nice to just leave a comment at each icon post you're saving and nominating icons from, so the icon maker a) is happy because of the nomination, b) might come over and vote and c) might even nominate a few more icons :)


I have created a Tips & Suggestions post for you where you can get a lot more tips *duh* that can save you a lot of time and make nominating easier and more fun.

just copy and paste, fill in the icon urls and usernames.
THE BEST <br /><img src=""> <br /><lj user=""> <br /> <br />FANDOM <br /> <br />STOCK <br /> <br />CROP <br /> <br />COLOR <br /> <br />B&W <br /> <br />SIMPLE <br /> <br />COMPLEX <br /> <br />TEXT <br /> <br />MUTE <br /> <br />EMOTIONAL <br /> <br />ORIGINAL <br /> <br />SPECIAL


If you have any questions or problems, don't hesitate to ask here.

please remember that this is an awards community where we want to nominate icons that we REALLY like. don't nominate just any icon because it fits the category description.

Also please note that categories are likely to change a bit depending on each round's topic. The list of categories here will ALWAYS be the current one.

THE BEST
for really outstanding icons that make you envy the maker's talents :)

FANDOM
for icons featuring a celebrity, tv show, movie, band, etc.

STOCK
for icons capturing a scene from a stock image

CROP
for icons with intriguing cropping

COLOR
for icons with very unique or brilliant use of color

B&W
for icons that really are black & white with not a single spot of color

SIMPLE
for icons in which less is simply more

COMPLEX
for icons where you ask yourself how someone can put so much on a tiny icon

TEXT
for icons that have clever or meaningful text enhancing the picture

MUTE
for icons with pictures that speak for themselves without the tiniest bit of text

EMOTIONAL
for icons that capture touching moments, happy, sad, funny, cute or anything in between

ORIGINAL / UNUSUAL
for icons which stand out from the crowd because they're very creative and interesting and different

SPECIAL
changes every month

Links

take a look here if you're looking for icons to nominate

Icon Watch - icon journal watch list
iconlounge - a tagged icon community


GENERAL
1cons
icons

elite
goodicons
good_icons
good_coloring
good_cropping
kickass_icons
magnifiqueicons
takenote_icons
ultimateicons


FANDOM
good_bandxicons
good_fanicons
good_movieicons
good_tvmovie
tvsquares


Stock
100x100stock
stock_icons

elite
goodstockicons
simplelimit
stockiconselite


TEXT
___lyricons
_elitetext
text_icons101
texticons411


ANIMATED ICONS
iconanimation