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Quick answers
When should I pick Open icon systems?
When the story is: slides, product UI, posters, school worksheets.
When should I avoid Open icon systems?
Skip it in cases like: mixing five icon styles on one slide.
Who invented or popularised it?
Feather to Lucide and other ISC/MIT SVG icon families on GitHub
What does it encode?
stroke or fill metaphors at a shared grid and weight
Is it OK in ads?
Yes if one claim is visible at a glance in Meta, Google and retail print; otherwise link to a full figure.
Will a teacher accept it?
Yes for lab reports and poster boards if axes, units and a source line are present.
Open icon systems encodes values as stroke or fill metaphors at a shared grid and weight. Feather to Lucide and other ISC/MIT SVG icon families on GitHub.
In reports, ads and assignments it fits slides, product UI, posters, school worksheets. Skip it when mixing five icon styles on one slide.
Software
- Lucide — Clean stroke icons - ISC, actively maintained. · ISC · github.com/lucide-icons/lucide
- Tabler Icons — Large MIT set with consistent stroke language. · MIT · github.com/tabler/tabler-icons
- Feather — Classic minimal set that inspired many forks. · MIT · github.com/feathericons/feather
- Ionicons — Web-component friendly icons for app UI. · MIT · github.com/ionic-team/ionicons
- Twemoji — Emoji graphics - credit per CC-BY-4.0 when you redistribute. · CC-BY-4.0 · github.com/twitter/twemoji
Exports
- Exports 1 — SVG
- Exports 2 — PDF
- Exports 3 — EMF/SVG into slides (no screenshots)
- Exports 4 — SVG for web, PDF for print
Accessibility
- Accessibility 1 — Never hue alone. Stack pattern, label and position.
- Accessibility 2 — 4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for large marks.
- Accessibility 3 — Short alt text on the chart; numbers also as an HTML table.
- Accessibility 4 — Motion only as emphasis. Honour prefers-reduced-motion.
Open icon systems: honour stroke or fill metaphors at a shared grid and weight, and switch when mixing five icon styles on one slide.