Comment by ulrischa

19 hours ago

Question to all HN Users: what is the best icon library?

You’ll get a lot of responses but for me (excuse the nostalgia), icon design peaked with famfamfam’s (aka Mark James’s) Silk iconset from ~2005. It was a shame they were never available at higher resolutions (or as SVG), though I’m betting AI (either as Adobe Illustrator or Artificial Intelligence) can probably rectify that these days (and generate subpar additional icons to expand the set).

View: https://peacocksoftware.com/silk

Download: https://github.com/markjames/famfamfam-silk-icons/tree/maste...

https://www.svgrepo.com I find the site very user friendly as it lets you customize the stroke's width, color etc, see how it looks like and copy the modified version.

  • This site shows up on google a lot but it's a bit sketchy that there isn't a link to the source / license text. Not to mention the SEO heavy descriptions.

    > Free Download Wallet 460 SVG vector file in monocolor and multicolor type for Sketch and Figma from Wallet 460 Vectors svg vector

    Plus I've found the license listed isn't always accurate. For example the emojione icons are listed as MIT. But the actual repo says CC 4.0, with the non-artwork being MIT.

    https://www.svgrepo.com/svg/404123/skull-and-crossbones

    https://github.com/joypixels/emojione/

    • I agree with you on the license issue, don't really mind the descriptions being too verbose or SEO oriented though but that's personal taste.

I like Material Symbols best. Largest selection AFAIK and simple enough that you can create unique ones that fit in.

  • My only issue with Material-anything is it immediately looks/feels to me like something Google-related.

    Not a deal-breaker entirely, but for my own things I like differentiate.

    • If you use rounded or outline variants it's a bit different at least. There's also the two-tone variant which at least I haven't seen used much

    • I see your point and like to do things myself, just so they're mine, but I feel like there's only so many ways to skin a cat and draw a plus symbol.

      Most users will not care if they have seen a map icon in another app before anyway.

Honestly, I always default to material icons unless a project calls for a very specific style. The coverage is just so dang good I rarely find a scenario without an appropriate icon and the style is neutral enough to blend in with a number of UI designs.