QA: How or where or what do i go or use to create banners and icons?

For icons, I use MicroAngelo.
http://www.microangelo.us/

For banners (and just about any other graphics I need anywhere) I use Adobe/MacroMedia Fireworks.
http://www.adobe.com/products/fireworks/

Fireworks also does a great job of things like kerning and aliasing, to make the blending of logos into a backdrop very smooth. As examples of both software, check out the icon and logo of the blue floppy disk, on my site, here...

http://www.gunthersoft.com

Then, to see the logo blended into a different backdrop, see where the Google ad says "advertise on this site"? Follow that and you'll see the same floppy disk graphic, only blended into Google's page instead.

That's the kind of thing you don't get with simpler programs. Both MicroAngelo and Fireworks have free trial downloads available.

First, you need software to create art for your banners and icons. Photoshop is the most widely used application for this. It's very robust. However, something as simple as MS Paint which comes with Windows can also do the job.

Second, you need to know what are the guidelines for which the art has to comply. In other words, how big can a banner be? Go to http://www.iab.net/standards/adunits.asp to find out about the creative sizes of various pieces of advertising creative.

That's it. It's pretty simple and can be fun.