Dreamwidth and Icons
Mar. 20th, 2026 01:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppet posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
newcomersBuckle in, everyone, this is going to be a long one!
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
Hold up; what exactly is an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'?
You might be familiar with them under a different name: PFP/Profile Pic, Avatar, Userpic, et cetera. Dreamwidth calls them icons because LJ called them icons, and over the years, users have turned them into their own art form. There's also more to them than you might think. Because the option to use icons is built into every post and every comment, they've developed into a quick, easy, and fun way to enhance conversations.
How should I use my icons?
That's largely up to you, but Dreamwidth users utilize icons in all kinds of ways.
One of the ways that Dreamwidth users have fun with icons is pretty familiar to Tumblr users: Whenever you leave a comment, they're basically built-in reaction images! Experienced icon artists can turn prized memes into bite-sized pieces, the image equivalent of haiku or 100 word drabbles. A skilled icon maker may even be able to turn infamous Tumblr post "The Color of the Sky" into an animated gif that fits Dreamwidth's icon size limits: 100 x 100 pixels, 60 kB file size. You could consider them the haiku masters of gifs and image edits.
Dreamwidth RPers in particular like to load up on icons as character reactions, with the icons showing their character's expression during an action. Some RP chains can involve one RPer responding to another with just a series of icons before adding more text. For example, if one character suggests something particularly outrageous, another character might respond first with a shocked expression, then an enraged one, then finally a resigned one, with only the last having any text in the comment body. That character will have just gone through a whole visible range of emotions, demonstrated entirely through their icons!
You don't have to stop at visuals for expressing yourself via icons, though; as I mentioned in Dreamwidth alternatives to talking in the tags, there's a lot of fun to be had with image keywords, as well.
In addition to using icons as reaction images (one way or another), people will also use them for things like denoting the general content of a post, such as using a sad icon to indicate that a post will be sad, using an icon for a specific fandom to indicate that it will be about that fandom, et cetera. They may also have a designated icon for a particular type of posts, such as poetry posts, fic posts, original writing posts, art posts, and so on. On communities, moderators in particular may use a specific icon to get the attention of other members in a hurry; or members may choose to use a specific icon to make posts with, so other members can recognize their content more quickly—or even so they can recognize their own. I, for one, am not immune to memory issues 😅
That sounds like fun! So... how may icons do I get? 😃?
Free accounts get 15 icons, basic paid accounts get 150, and premium paid accounts get 300. If you have either type of paid account, though, you can also purchase up to an additional 500 icon slots. These slots are permanent, which means that they will stay with the account as long as it is active; HOWEVER, if your paid account expires, you will only have access to fifteen icons, no matter how many extra slots you may have purchased. This, unfortunately, goes back to image data being expensive. Luckily, if you renew your paid account, all of your extra icons will still be waiting for you; you just won't be able to use them until then. You can find out more about that here in Dreamwidth's official FAQ. Honestly, their whole icon FAQ section is pretty useful.
What happens if I have more than 15 icons but my paid account runs out?
At that point, Dreamwidth will automatically calculate which 15 icons you use the most (including your default icon, if you have one) and assign those to your available icon slots. All of your other icons will still be there, you just won't be able to use them until you have a paid account again. Which also means you won't have to reupload them later—phew!
Similarly, unlike if you delete an icon, all prior uses of any icons linked to your account will remain where they are. So if you had a really fantastic RP session with some great characters and used twenty-five different icons across your interactions, all of those icons will still show up where they were when you first used them. So if you're an RPer who wants to let a character go but doesn't want all of your previous RP threads to lose meaning, you're in the clear! You don't need to keep paying Dreamwidth for those threads to stay intact.
What's a "default icon", and do I need to have one?
As the name suggests, a default icon is the one that will be posted if you don't specifically select an icon. It'll be the one that's displayed in your profile and at the top of your account, if anyone goes looking at the front page. If you delete any of your other icons, the default icon is what will show up in their place. It's the default!
You don't actually need to assign any icon to be your default, or have any icons at all; icons may not be for you, and that's okay! Not every feature of Dreamwidth is going to appeal to every person, but hopefully this post is giving you an idea of why some people here love icons.
Where do I get icons and/or how do I make them?
There are some fantastic communities on Dreamwidth dedicated solely to making icons!icons in particular is going strong, with lots of different fandom options; dreamsheep is considerably less active, but features a lot of icons with Dreamwidth's not-a-mascot, the Dreamsheep.
To make icons, what most people do is take screencaps from their favorite shows, or pages from their favorite comics, tighten up the colors a little (as necessary), then crop the images down to the right size. Some people like to add a little border around the outside, or maybe some text; some people like to hand-draw icons. Animated gif icons have been very popular in the past, as well. Just remember the size limits of 100x100 pixels and 60KB, and the format requirements of jpg, png, or gif!
Unfortunately, I can't say I know much more about making icons than that; hopefully, some kind user will be able to link a tutorial or two in the comments!
IMPORTANT: In general, it is considered very rude to use someone else's icon without permission. There are exceptions to this! A lot of the icons shared aticons, for example, will be available for anyone to use; they're being shared at that community because they're available for anyone to use. However, they may still have conditions; usually the only condition is "credit so-and-so as the maker somewhere", but it's important to keep an eye out just in case the icon maker has other conditions for use.
Wait, credit?
As I said above, icons are considered an art form on Dreamwidth and other LJ-like sites; hopefully you've picked up from Tumblr exactly how important it is to be able to share who made a piece of art! Being able to point at an icon and say, "This was made by so-and-so" means that other people may be able to approach that person with icon commissions or requests. And even if the maker isn't open to that, they still may have put a lot of work into that icon! It's polite to say who did the work.
How do I upload icons to my account?
Okay, you know those drop-down menus at the top of the page in your profile or Dreamwidth's home page? From those options, select "Create", then scroll down the drop-down menu and select "Upload Icon". This will take you to the page where you, well, upload icons! This is also the page where you can manage any icons you already have, such as changing descriptions or notes, adding or removing keywords, or straight up deleting icons.
This is what the upload form looks like:
As you can see, you can either click the "Browse" button to browse files you've downloaded to your device and upload in the "From File" section, or you can right click on an icon you've seen elsewhere, copy the URL for the image, and paste it into the "From URL" text box.
Now we get to the text areas below that: Keywords, Comment, and Description.
Keywords are the really important part here! When you make a post or a comment, unless you have a paid account, the only way to pick out which icon you want to use is by scrolling through your list of available keywords, or repeatedly clicking "Random" until you find the icon you want to use. I don't know about you, but picking from a list generally sounds like a quicker way to find what I want, especially if I have more than fifteen icons! Plus, you can do fun meta communication things, like I said in my post about alternatives to talking in the tags.
You're limited to 10 keywords per icon, with each keyword string limited to 40 characters.
The Comment section is a great place to store any extra information about your icon. If you're using an icon made by someone else, this is an ideal place to give them credit; it sticks to that icon for as long as it's uploaded to your account, and you can find it by going to the Create Icon page and scrolling down to your existing icons. You can also put other things, like what fandom it's from, the mood you were in while uploading it, or anything else (text-wise) you can think of.
The Description section is for the alt text that goes with the icon; I'm just going to copy-paste what's on the Upload Icon page to explain it:
You don't have to include an image description, just like you don't have to include comments, but if it's the work of a minute or less, it's considered polite to include it. For me, I consider it a way to keep all of my internet friends in the loop for the extra fun that I have with icons.
Once we've gotten past all of the text fields, we have a little clicky circle button asking if you want to make whatever you just uploaded your new default icon. If you do, click that circle! If not, leave it unclicked, and it'll be another non-default icon.
Importantly, unlike the single icon uploading form that appears by default, this one has two radio buttons (clicky circles) to choose from: "Make this your default icon" and "Keep existing default icon", which I'm pretty sure means you have to pick one of them. Still, that should be pretty straightforward!
After you're done with that, click the Proceed button at the very bottom of the icon uploading field, and you're done! You now have a brand new icon or icons uploaded and ready to use.
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)
Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
Hold up; what exactly is an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'?
You might be familiar with them under a different name: PFP/Profile Pic, Avatar, Userpic, et cetera. Dreamwidth calls them icons because LJ called them icons, and over the years, users have turned them into their own art form. There's also more to them than you might think. Because the option to use icons is built into every post and every comment, they've developed into a quick, easy, and fun way to enhance conversations.
How should I use my icons?
That's largely up to you, but Dreamwidth users utilize icons in all kinds of ways.
One of the ways that Dreamwidth users have fun with icons is pretty familiar to Tumblr users: Whenever you leave a comment, they're basically built-in reaction images! Experienced icon artists can turn prized memes into bite-sized pieces, the image equivalent of haiku or 100 word drabbles. A skilled icon maker may even be able to turn infamous Tumblr post "The Color of the Sky" into an animated gif that fits Dreamwidth's icon size limits: 100 x 100 pixels, 60 kB file size. You could consider them the haiku masters of gifs and image edits.
Dreamwidth RPers in particular like to load up on icons as character reactions, with the icons showing their character's expression during an action. Some RP chains can involve one RPer responding to another with just a series of icons before adding more text. For example, if one character suggests something particularly outrageous, another character might respond first with a shocked expression, then an enraged one, then finally a resigned one, with only the last having any text in the comment body. That character will have just gone through a whole visible range of emotions, demonstrated entirely through their icons!
You don't have to stop at visuals for expressing yourself via icons, though; as I mentioned in Dreamwidth alternatives to talking in the tags, there's a lot of fun to be had with image keywords, as well.
In addition to using icons as reaction images (one way or another), people will also use them for things like denoting the general content of a post, such as using a sad icon to indicate that a post will be sad, using an icon for a specific fandom to indicate that it will be about that fandom, et cetera. They may also have a designated icon for a particular type of posts, such as poetry posts, fic posts, original writing posts, art posts, and so on. On communities, moderators in particular may use a specific icon to get the attention of other members in a hurry; or members may choose to use a specific icon to make posts with, so other members can recognize their content more quickly—or even so they can recognize their own. I, for one, am not immune to memory issues 😅
That sounds like fun! So... how may icons do I get? 😃?
Free accounts get 15 icons, basic paid accounts get 150, and premium paid accounts get 300. If you have either type of paid account, though, you can also purchase up to an additional 500 icon slots. These slots are permanent, which means that they will stay with the account as long as it is active; HOWEVER, if your paid account expires, you will only have access to fifteen icons, no matter how many extra slots you may have purchased. This, unfortunately, goes back to image data being expensive. Luckily, if you renew your paid account, all of your extra icons will still be waiting for you; you just won't be able to use them until then. You can find out more about that here in Dreamwidth's official FAQ. Honestly, their whole icon FAQ section is pretty useful.
What happens if I have more than 15 icons but my paid account runs out?
At that point, Dreamwidth will automatically calculate which 15 icons you use the most (including your default icon, if you have one) and assign those to your available icon slots. All of your other icons will still be there, you just won't be able to use them until you have a paid account again. Which also means you won't have to reupload them later—phew!
Similarly, unlike if you delete an icon, all prior uses of any icons linked to your account will remain where they are. So if you had a really fantastic RP session with some great characters and used twenty-five different icons across your interactions, all of those icons will still show up where they were when you first used them. So if you're an RPer who wants to let a character go but doesn't want all of your previous RP threads to lose meaning, you're in the clear! You don't need to keep paying Dreamwidth for those threads to stay intact.
What's a "default icon", and do I need to have one?
As the name suggests, a default icon is the one that will be posted if you don't specifically select an icon. It'll be the one that's displayed in your profile and at the top of your account, if anyone goes looking at the front page. If you delete any of your other icons, the default icon is what will show up in their place. It's the default!
You don't actually need to assign any icon to be your default, or have any icons at all; icons may not be for you, and that's okay! Not every feature of Dreamwidth is going to appeal to every person, but hopefully this post is giving you an idea of why some people here love icons.
Where do I get icons and/or how do I make them?
There are some fantastic communities on Dreamwidth dedicated solely to making icons!
icons in particular is going strong, with lots of different fandom options; dreamsheep is considerably less active, but features a lot of icons with Dreamwidth's not-a-mascot, the Dreamsheep.To make icons, what most people do is take screencaps from their favorite shows, or pages from their favorite comics, tighten up the colors a little (as necessary), then crop the images down to the right size. Some people like to add a little border around the outside, or maybe some text; some people like to hand-draw icons. Animated gif icons have been very popular in the past, as well. Just remember the size limits of 100x100 pixels and 60KB, and the format requirements of jpg, png, or gif!
Unfortunately, I can't say I know much more about making icons than that; hopefully, some kind user will be able to link a tutorial or two in the comments!
IMPORTANT: In general, it is considered very rude to use someone else's icon without permission. There are exceptions to this! A lot of the icons shared at
icons, for example, will be available for anyone to use; they're being shared at that community because they're available for anyone to use. However, they may still have conditions; usually the only condition is "credit so-and-so as the maker somewhere", but it's important to keep an eye out just in case the icon maker has other conditions for use.Wait, credit?
As I said above, icons are considered an art form on Dreamwidth and other LJ-like sites; hopefully you've picked up from Tumblr exactly how important it is to be able to share who made a piece of art! Being able to point at an icon and say, "This was made by so-and-so" means that other people may be able to approach that person with icon commissions or requests. And even if the maker isn't open to that, they still may have put a lot of work into that icon! It's polite to say who did the work.
How do I upload icons to my account?
Okay, you know those drop-down menus at the top of the page in your profile or Dreamwidth's home page? From those options, select "Create", then scroll down the drop-down menu and select "Upload Icon". This will take you to the page where you, well, upload icons! This is also the page where you can manage any icons you already have, such as changing descriptions or notes, adding or removing keywords, or straight up deleting icons.
This is what the upload form looks like:
As you can see, you can either click the "Browse" button to browse files you've downloaded to your device and upload in the "From File" section, or you can right click on an icon you've seen elsewhere, copy the URL for the image, and paste it into the "From URL" text box.
Now we get to the text areas below that: Keywords, Comment, and Description.
Keywords are the really important part here! When you make a post or a comment, unless you have a paid account, the only way to pick out which icon you want to use is by scrolling through your list of available keywords, or repeatedly clicking "Random" until you find the icon you want to use. I don't know about you, but picking from a list generally sounds like a quicker way to find what I want, especially if I have more than fifteen icons! Plus, you can do fun meta communication things, like I said in my post about alternatives to talking in the tags.
You're limited to 10 keywords per icon, with each keyword string limited to 40 characters.
The Comment section is a great place to store any extra information about your icon. If you're using an icon made by someone else, this is an ideal place to give them credit; it sticks to that icon for as long as it's uploaded to your account, and you can find it by going to the Create Icon page and scrolling down to your existing icons. You can also put other things, like what fandom it's from, the mood you were in while uploading it, or anything else (text-wise) you can think of.
The Description section is for the alt text that goes with the icon; I'm just going to copy-paste what's on the Upload Icon page to explain it:
This is an optional description of the picture that will be displayed for people who can't view it, e.g. visually-impaired people using screen readers. Example: "Photo of me in the mirror, holding up camera." Read more about good descriptions.
You don't have to include an image description, just like you don't have to include comments, but if it's the work of a minute or less, it's considered polite to include it. For me, I consider it a way to keep all of my internet friends in the loop for the extra fun that I have with icons.
Once we've gotten past all of the text fields, we have a little clicky circle button asking if you want to make whatever you just uploaded your new default icon. If you do, click that circle! If not, leave it unclicked, and it'll be another non-default icon.
Here's a little bit about if you want to upload multiple icons at once; if you don't, you can go ahead and skip it.
After that are two button options for if you want to upload more than one icon at once; you can click the left button if you want to upload another icon from a file, and the right icon if you want to upload another icon via URL. This will automatically create another field for you to upload an icon! Unfortunately, the text boxes are a little scrunched together for me at the moment, which is something I'll submit a bug report for ...probably in a day or two, if I'm being honest 😅 It's already pretty late for me! BUT, the text fields do appear to be in the same order: Keywords, Comment, Description.Importantly, unlike the single icon uploading form that appears by default, this one has two radio buttons (clicky circles) to choose from: "Make this your default icon" and "Keep existing default icon", which I'm pretty sure means you have to pick one of them. Still, that should be pretty straightforward!
After you're done with that, click the Proceed button at the very bottom of the icon uploading field, and you're done! You now have a brand new icon or icons uploaded and ready to use.
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
