Icon Design Tools and Techniques

The tools you use shape your design workflow and output quality. This guide covers popular icon design tools and the techniques that help you create polished, consistent icons efficiently.

Choosing Your Design Tool

Several applications excel at icon creation. Each has strengths that suit different workflows:

Figma

Figma has become the industry standard for UI design, including icons. Its key advantages include browser-based access, real-time collaboration, and component/variant systems that work well for icon libraries. The built-in SVG export is reliable, and its free tier is generous for individual use.

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator remains the most powerful vector editor available. It offers precise control over anchor points, paths, and strokes. The pixel preview mode helps with icon optimization, and its extensive export options handle any format need. The learning curve is steeper, but the capability is unmatched.

Sketch

Sketch pioneered many features now standard in design tools. It's Mac-only but remains popular for its focused feature set and symbol system. Export presets and plugins extend its icon workflow capabilities significantly.

Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer offers professional vector editing at a one-time purchase price. It handles both vector and raster work, includes a pixel preview mode, and exports to all standard formats. An excellent choice for designers wanting to avoid subscriptions.

Setting Up Your Workspace

Before creating icons, configure your workspace for efficiency:

Create a base grid at your target size (24×24 is common)
Set up guides for consistent padding (typically 2px)
Define stroke and fill styles you'll reuse
Create templates with keylines for common shapes
Configure export presets for your required formats

Investing time in setup pays off when creating dozens or hundreds of icons.

Working with the Pixel Grid

Even though you're creating vectors, icons often display at specific pixel sizes. Designing "on grid" ensures crisp rendering:

Align anchor points to whole pixel coordinates
Use stroke widths that result in whole-pixel rendering (1px, 2px)
Check edges don't fall on half-pixels, causing blur
Use your tool's pixel preview mode to verify sharpness

SVGs scale to any size, but optimizing for common sizes like 16px and 24px improves typical use cases.

Creating Consistent Stroke Weights

Stroke consistency is crucial for a professional icon set. Establish rules and follow them:

Pick a primary stroke weight (1.5px or 2px are popular)
Define secondary weights for details if needed
Use consistent cap styles (round, square, butt)
Use consistent join styles (round, miter, bevel)
Apply corner radius consistently when rounding

Document these decisions so you (and collaborators) maintain consistency across the icon set.

Shape Building Techniques

Most icons can be constructed from basic shapes combined with boolean operations:

Union - Combine shapes into one
Subtract - Cut one shape from another
Intersect - Keep only overlapping areas
Exclude - Remove overlapping areas

Start with rectangles, circles, and polygons. Transform and combine them to build complex icons while maintaining mathematical precision.

Drawing Custom Paths

When basic shapes aren't enough, draw custom paths with the pen tool:

Use as few anchor points as possible
Place points at curve direction changes
Keep handles aligned for smooth curves
Simplify paths after drawing to remove unnecessary points

Practice drawing common curves like arrows, checkmarks, and organic shapes. Muscle memory develops with repetition.

Achieving Visual Balance

Mathematical centering doesn't always look centered. Icons need optical adjustments:

Triangles and arrows may need slight offset to appear centered
Thin shapes may need more visual weight than thick shapes
Different icon shapes occupy different amounts of the canvas
Test icons together to ensure consistent visual weight

Trust your eyes over measurements. If something looks off, it is off—regardless of what coordinates say.

Creating Style Variants

Many icon sets include multiple styles. Common variants include:

Outlined - Strokes only, transparent fill
Filled - Solid shapes
Duotone - Two-tone with primary and secondary colors
Thin/Regular/Bold - Weight variations

Design your base style first, then create variants systematically. Component systems in Figma and Sketch help manage variants efficiently.

Quality Control Workflow

Before marking an icon complete, verify:

Strokes and fills match your style guide
Alignment is consistent with other icons
The icon is recognizable at the smallest intended size
There are no stray points or hidden elements
Paths are clean (no unnecessary anchors)
The icon looks balanced alongside similar icons

Build a quality checklist into your workflow. It's easier to catch issues before export than after delivery.

Optimization Before Export

Clean files produce better exports:

Flatten groups where possible
Convert strokes to outlines if your export requires it
Simplify complex paths
Remove unused colors and styles
Ensure artboard size matches your intended export size

Post-export, run SVGs through an optimizer like SVGO to reduce file size further without affecting appearance.