Klimt? Van Gogh? Jackson Pollock? O’Keeffe?

It’s not every day that you get a chance to dress up your Mail.app stamp icon with high art, but deviantART user fruit4dinner gives you the chance.

He (or she) has created four replacement mail stamp icons for mail.app featuring “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt, “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh, “Poppy” By Georgia O’Keeffe (a modern American artist — Wikipedia ) and “Convergence” by Jackson Pollock:

The icons are only presented as PNG image files on deviantART.

I have converted them into ICNS files, bundled them up and offer them to you here as a zip file. Enjoy!

Of course, if you are looking for something different and High Art doesn’t appeal, you can always look at today’s Simpsons Icon Bonzana-rama post or roll your own icon, following instructions in an earlier Hawk Wings post.

Or snag one from Hawk Wing’s list of 509 (now 513!) replacement icons.

Luckily, Replacing Mail.app’s icon is easy. Apple Mail, apple mail tips, hacks, icons, mail.app, Photoshop, stamp icons, van gogh, klimt, okeeffe, pollock

Hawk Wings reader Richard Drdul sends an image of a very Old School Canadian postage stamp, drawn up as a Mail stamp icon.

It is, he tells me, Canada’s first ever postage stamp issued in 1851, and was designed by Sir Sandford Fleming, who also invented time zones.

It was also the first official postage stamp in the world to picture an animal.

The postmark reads “Greetings from Upper Canada,” which is what the province of Ontario (where Apple’s Canadian HQ is) used to be called.

You can download the original PNG file or the ICNS file here.

Changing the icon itself is easy. (UPDATE: Unless you are using Snow Leopard, in which case it is not so easy, but can still be done. I’ll post a a Snow Leopard guide tonight.)

I’ve added it to the list of alternative stamp icons for Mail.app, making a total now of 509.

[Thanks, Richard]mail.app, apple mail, icons, stamp icons, hacks

Rolling your own Mail stamp icon is fun. Hawk Wings has covered it before. But now there is a much better Photoshop template that makes the whole process even easier.

The template was created by chekkz and is hosted on her DeviantART page where you can download it.

Then it’s simple as shooting fish in a barrel.

1. Open the PSD file in Photoshop.
2. Everything can be edited, including the text around the postmark. To edit the text, select the text layer in the Inspector, select the text tool on the left, and place the cursor in the existing text. Edit away. The default icon carries the text” Hello from Cupertino CA”.
3. Images in Mail Stamp icons are rotated 10 degrees counterclockwise (if you are wondering). The rotated image is 368 x 412 pixels in size.
4. When you have edited the text and dropped in your image, save it off as a PNG file.
5. Then you need one of the many free utilities that convert PNG files into ICNS format. I use img2icns by Shiny Frog. Drop the PNG file into its interface.
6. You’re done.

The possibilities are endless. You can make something scary that will grab your attention first thing in the morning:

Something sleek and professional might be what you need, a reminder of who is paying you to deal with all these emails:

Or something altogether more soft and cuddly like, say, a snow leopard:

Replacing the default icon is easy. Just follow the steps in a previous Hawk Wings post.

Then you have a nice icon in the Dock which is all yours:

Of course, if you can’t be bothered, you can always pick one from the 508+ icons I’ve collected on the Hawk Wings Mail stamp icons page which is about to expand further when I add the ones that have appeared in the last year.

If your creations are top notch, drop me an email and I’ll put them up on Hawk Wings for everyone to use and enjoy.

Hmmm…. Maybe we should have a competition, and try to get celebrity judges like Merlin Mann, John Gruber and that crowd. Now the blogging cogs are turning again!mail.app, apple mail, icons, stamp icons, hacks, tips, photoshop, Borka Kegslayer

A Japanese graphic artist has created 40 mail stamp icons, featuring various cute animals.

He provides icons for two different coloured icons of an apple, a cat, a chicken, a cow, an elephant, a golden retriever, a hawk, a horse, a monkey hearing no evil, another speaking no evil and one seeing no evil, a husky, a ladybird, a poodle, a rabbit, the weirdest looking sheep I have ever seen, a snail, a snake and a tiger.

The collection also contains two icons of a “black guy”. Here’s a taste of the overall style:

Changing Mail.app’s Dock icon is easy, and fun.

You can get the icons from his web site .

I’ve added them to the Hawk Wings Alternative Mail Stamps Icon list, which which now contains 507 mail stamp icons (assuming all the links still work).mail.app, apple mail, icons, dock icon, hack, tips, animals, cartoons, tiger, chicken, hawk, monkey, stamp icons

A few days ago a Hawk Wings reader kindly emailed me about his search for a template to create Mail Stamp icons.

I skimmed it, thought it was very interesting and then — somehow — lost it. Not even a mailbox rebuild brought it back.

If that person could email again, I’d be very grateful. Sorry about that. mail.app, apple mail, stamp icons, hacks, mail stamps, how embarrassing, template

Brian W pointed me towards some more alternative icons for Mail.app.

They feature images of “Marianne” (Wikipedia ), the national emblem of France and the embodiment of liberty and reason.

Brian likes them he says because “Mail.app is easier to hit in the dock when it isn’t the same blue color as every other Apple application!”

French site Cocoricones provides two sets of these Marianne stamps, each in blue, yellow, red, green and purple, one set in a traditional style and one with a more avant garde flavour (naturellement!).

Changing the icon itself is easy.

I’ve added the collection to the list of alternative stamp icons for Mail.app, making a total now of 295.mail.app, apple mail, icons, stamp icons, hacks

A collection of thirty national flag icons for Mail.app on DeviantART gives you the chance to get all patriotic with your email.

The USA, UK, Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates all feature.

Flags are not a natural fit for Mail’s stamp icon, but the artist has turned the images out nicely:

The images are PNG files, but can easily be converted into ICNS format with the utility img2icns .

And changing the icon itself is easy.

I’ve added the collection to the list of alternative stamp icons for Mail.app, making a total now of 284. mail.app, apple mail, icons, stamp icons, hacks