What Icon Sets Tell You About a Designer's Taste
Icons are the most autopilot decision in design. Need a home icon? Grab the default set, drop it in, move on, pretend you didn't see it. Fine once.
Your default icons are basically your design handwriting. Here's how to get better handwriting.
A mega-library of icons in a lot of styles. The point isn't more choice (you have enough of that). It's picking a style on purpose instead of accepting whatever came free with your UI kit.
Free, customisable, open-source icons that don't look open-source. Adjust the stroke to match your type and suddenly everything looks expensive.
Hand-drawn icons with wobble and personality. Instantly makes a brand feel like it was made by humans who drink too much coffee. Which it was.
Animated, customisable icons. Use animation where it earns its place. If every icon on the page is bouncing, it's not delightful. It's a hostage situation.
A library of 4,000+ 3D icons. Icons as a visual language, not just "click here." Very collectible. Very dangerous for your free time.
Mix-and-match illustrations of people. Customise them and you've got an illustration system with personality. Don't, and you've got the same little people as everyone else's onboarding screen.
The details are the design.
Real Designers Don't Gatekeep series. More finds every week on @two.sleepyheads.
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