gui design - Alternative method of displaying notification alert to user with awkward icons

Due to the awkward nature of my notification icon, I've been forced to settle with a red dot near the notifications icon, which seems less than ideal from a UX point of view particularly because it isn't clear enough. I tried to putting it at the top right of the icon, but it did not work, so I wanted to ask, can user notification alerts be displayed in any better ways?

In a situation where I would need to change the icon - I would welcome any suggestions.

Answer

I would make 2 changes:

1. 
   

   Replace the notification icon for the one shown on the screenshot. It's from the Iconic theme. (http://somerandomdude.com/work/iconic/)

   
   


2. 
   

   Have 2 states for the icon:

   
   
   
   
   
   • Inactive: display white icon.
   
   
   • Active: change the icon's background color and display the number of notifications. I would limit the numbers up to 3 digits. This way, if you have more than 99 notifications display "+99".