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Learn How To Credit

Why?

I know there are many tutorials already on how to do such a simple task, but I decided to make my own for the heck of it (Plus I keep getting asked this). Foremost, I'd like to start off with why you should even credit in the first place.

For those who don't know yet, it takes icon makers a lot of time to make the icons others simply save and upload in their user pictures. Not only in actually making the graphics, but also in coming up with new techniques in doing certain variations, trying to stay unique amongst the rest, etc. Even though we do all this for our own entertainment, we'd like to get recognized every once and a while.

Giving credit shows you respect the time we took into creating the icons or other graphics you like of ours. In addition, it is helpful for others who see the graphic you are using in locating more graphics by that same creator(s). It's not hard nor wastes a lot of time, so I don't know why so many are against it.

It doesn't even need to mess up your keywords, for (as it is explained below) Livejournal has added a bottom comment feature for user pictures so you are able to credit without having to scramble up the keywords you want to use for a specific icon. Not only is that beneficial for organizational purposes; it prevents ways of cutting off the creator(s) name.

That being said, I hope many of you understand how much this can mean to an icon/graphic maker (Or any type of maker for that matter, such as website layout creators) by doing such a small thing. Some great people have had the problem of so many users not bothering to credit that they have given up altogether with the issue... Don't you want to make your favorite icon-makers happy, even if they are strangers?

Sign in and go to the top taskbar. Hover over "Manage" and click on "User Pictures."

Take note that there are several ways to credit, not just the ones I've listed below (They serve mainly as guidelines at most). All you really need to remember is to place the creator(s) name near the icon somewhere that's visible (Without having the name cut off please). Crediting in your user profile is acceptable, but I believe it is easier and more beneficial for users to do it directly in the "User Pictures" section.