Streamline Icons

A cheerful mix of essentials ✨

What makes icons consistent? Part 8/10: Metaphor choices. The way a concept is represented should match the library's visual vocabulary, using widely recognized symbols and established visual metaphors. Both binoculars and a magnifying glass could point to the same idea, but we choose the magnifying glass as the primary symbol for "search", the more widely recognized one.

What happens when you give everyday icons a geometric makeover? 👀

What makes icons consistent? Part 7/10: Level of detail and simplification. Icons need a comparable degree of complexity, with clear rules for which details are essential and which can be removed. As the grid gets smaller, the detail gets simpler, leaving only what's essential. Ultimate Light, Core Line, and Micro Line each holds its own level of detail, consistent across every icon in it ✨

What began as a collection of landmarks turned into a little travel diary ✨

What makes icons consistent? Part 6/10: Perspective. Every icon should be drawn from the same viewpoint, either orthographic or isometric, not 2D in one icon and angled in another. One isometric icon in an otherwise 2D set is enough to break perspective. Core Duo keeps every icon on the same 2D plane 👇

Today's design references were particularly appetizing 😋

What makes icons consistent? Part 5/10: Proportion and negative space. Elements should feel proportionally similar across concepts, so no icon appears unusually large, cramped, or delicate, and the negative space within the grid doesn't look too dense or too open. Before and after harmonizing Ultimate Light: irregular proportions smoothed into a tidier, more consistent look ✨

The grid took the day off. We made icons anyway ✨

What makes icons consistent? Part 4/10: Gaps and spacing. The space between lines, shapes, and parts of the icons should stay even across the set, not tight in one icon and loose in another. A gap that shrinks in one icon and stretches in another is enough to make a simple set feel uneven. Core Solid keeps that space consistent throughout 👇

When designing interface icons, the challenge isn't always inventing something new. Sometimes it's refining what's familiar. Other times, it's giving familiar symbols a new meaning ✨

What makes icons consistent? Part 3/10: Line construction. Where a line ends (caps), where two lines meet (joins), and how sharply or smoothly a shape turns a corner (corner radius), all of it should follow one consistent treatment across the set. A rounded cap here, a sharp join there, an overly rounded corner somewhere. We keep consistency in Micro Line icons by making sure small mismatches like these don't happen.

A familiar face from Streamline's early days ✨

What makes icons consistent? Part 2/10: Visual weight. Icons should look equally heavy or light across the set, despite having different shapes or levels of detail. Nothing looks too light or too heavy. Equal visual weight ensures consistency ✨

The rabbit is fast. The snail has other priorities ✨

What makes icons consistent? Part 1/10: Stroke weight. Every icon should use the exact same line thickness, with no icon running thinner or thicker than the rest. Same Flex Line icons, same stroke weight. Consistency starts with something this simple 👇

Serious subjects, unserious shapes 👀

Core icons, dipped in rainbows ✨

An icon library is a visual system made of hundreds or thousands of individual decisions. The real challenge is not drawing one good icon. It is drawing the thousandth icon so it still feels like it was made by the same hand, using the same visual language. The AI icons, marked in green, are some of the newest additions to Ultimate's 18,000+ icons. More than a decade after the set began, they still follow the same rules ✨