In this tutorial I will show you some basic techniques in creating simple yet pleasing icons in Fireworks. Start off by creating a new file, and using your elliptical marquee tool to make a circular selection. Fill your selection with a radial gradient, making sure that your inside color is lighter than your outside color. Position the start of your gradient in the top-left corner, and let it radiate downward and to the right. Your image should look similar to mine.

Use your Ellipse tools to create a new circle smaller than your first. This will act as a highlight reflection. Position it towards the top of your original circle, and charge the gradient colors. Change your light color to white, and lower the opacity of your darker color to 0. Apply your gradient to your selection.

Use your text tool to create a character to represent your icon. I used an @ symbol, which would make a good "contact" icon. Position your text towards the bottom of your circle so that part of the text bleeds into the white background, as shown below.

Duplicate your text layer by clicking on the icon towards the top left corner of your layers tab, and choosing "duplicate layer". Change the colors of your original text to a dark blue.

move the bottom of the two text layers two pixels upward and two pixels to the left. This will give your duplicate layer an inlayed effect.

Apply a gradient to your white text of light blue to white, making sure that the light blue color starts at the top and radiates downward. This will increase the depth of our inlayed effect.

Next I converted my layers to bitmap by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Z, and merged them together by clicking Ctrl+E. Now that they are bitmap I can use the erasers tool to clean up the unwanted edges created by the dark text layer.

Here is how my finished icon turned out.