Icons are now everywhere, from social media to businesses, and everyone today is busy finding the right icon for themselves. Without the right set of icons within it, a designer toolkit is never complete.
When a specific icon goes on to represent a particular business then we call such icons as business icons. Nowadays, people use icons for different kinds of businesses whether small or big. With each business, the role of these icons changes slightly in terms of their presentation.
What are Business Icons
Business icons represent a particular icon class that goes through the process of trademark registration. These icons represent the values and beliefs of every company. Even though a business icon is a shape or form one can recognize, the designer adds a bit of abstractness to make it more unique.
When laying out a website design, a designer will not just resort to ordinary free SVG icons alone for denoting various business aspects. Instead, they will also create a special business icon that is unique and stands out to represent your business.
Designers design business icons in a way that our mind relates them to a word as soon as we see it. Most often the word that we relate the business icon to, is the name of the company or brand.
- When you see the tweety bird, your mind relates it to Twitter.
- If you see the pink hologram like image, you know it to be Instagram.
Thus, an icon can neither be so unique that our brain does not recognize it at all and it can’t be so common that the brain sees it in everything.
Microsoft Firefox, McAfee, Microsoft Store, Lenovo, WordPress, and even MS Word has their icon.
All about business icons and their versions
Often one standard business icon can have multiple versions. Each version can have a different color or other differences. But these variations cannot be too obvious. Most importantly, the company needs to approve all these variations before you can use them.
You may think why would people generally make different versions of the same icon? The only reason one can think of is, many times, we do not like using the same structural pattern daily. When they do not like the same pattern or color every time, they try to change a bit to make it more engaging or newer looking.
An icon does not only represent a company’s logo but also might be used for representing;
- certain information, or
- topic and
- even a particular category and sometimes even
- a program
Things to keep in mind when creating a business icon
If you want to create a business icon for your business, then you must find out a few things about it.
Find out what all things in your business might need an icon. Many things might require an icon but the most common ones are;
- The logo of your business,
- Your email ID,
- Other contact details
- Your social handles
- Service offerings of your business
- Your product pricing
- Indicating product delivery
Once you know which particular functions of your business need an icon, try to create one of your choices or borrow from sites that give out icons for free.
How do you create a business icon for the first time?
Creating a new business icon for your mail, telephone, logo, and other contact information is mostly not needed. You can borrow from free icon sites like Iamvector which has an amazing pool of free SVG icons. All you need to do is visit the site, choose one among many and use it for your services or sections presented through the website.
But when you create a business icon or logo for the first time, you can use your creativity. Once you have set the ground rules for the business icon, it is important to register it and set the rules for it.
Next time, when someone is trying to recreate your business icon even in the form of a free SVG icon, they will need to follow the ground rules to make it.
However, you might face some challenges when you try to create your social media icons. Most social media icons are already registered. So, you will have to follow the set of rules of their company if you try to recreate it.
In this case, the wisest choice will be to visit a site like Iamvector.com to find out the right version of the social media icon for your business. With them, the social media icons are mostly free SVG icons. All you need to do is, either download it or copy your choicest icon from the set of all free SVG icons and paste it on your website template.
Next, we need to understand what choices we must consider when creating a business icon.
How to choose your Icons
After you make the list of icons you need, segregate them as the ones you want your designer to create and the ones you will borrow from other platforms.
When creating your business icon, keep in mind a few things about your business and company.
- The color of your company
- The message of your brand
- The focal point of your products
- Relevance of your business icon to your business needs
- When borrowing free SVG icons from any of the free icon making sites, know all the above information. Choose, even your free icons carefully, so that they sync with your website, products, business, and brand.
Now that you know a lot about how to make your icons, you must know how many types of icons can be created.
How many types of icons are there?
There are a few distinct types of icons that you must know about.
- Abstract
- Interactive
- Custom logo
- Pictorial
- Geometric
You can try any of the icon forms for your business, and what you choose depends on your business requirements.
For small businesses, businessmen often use free icons by altering them through the free SVG editors or the icon editors present in these free icon-making sites. Iamvector.com is one such site where you can alter an icon as per your business needs to start with. Mostly if you are short of funds, you can try this trick.
How do you make a business icon for yourself for free?
Business icons are costly to create but with these free available sites, you can start by creating one for yourself. Choose a site to create your icons. In this scenario, we will explain with reference to Iamvector.com.
For a moment, we will consider that you are running short of funds. You decide to create your icon as you cannot pay a designer for it. How do you start creating one for yourself?
- The first step is to go to the site of your choice. In our case, we will choose Iamvector.com.
- Next, we need to know what kind of icon we wish to create for our business. Do you want an alphabet or a geometric shape or pattern, even a design maybe?
- As soon as you open their platform, you can see a box where you can type the shape you want for your icon.
- If you want a bird to represent your business, type the word in the space provided and then press Enter.
- You will see a lot of options and icons of different birds in front of you.
- Choose the bird you want as your business icon or message icon.
- If you do not like the black and white icon, you can choose colors for it.
- You can also rotate the icon clockwise or anti-clockwise and even use an animated version if you wish.
- If you do not know what you want for your business, from the left-hand side, you can also choose the Business tab. Once the Business options open for you, choose any of the shapes and forms and make alterations as desired.
Conclusion
As many businesses are there, that many business icons you can find today. When you go to create your business icon, think of that one thing that makes your business special. If you are not able to fund yourself, take the help of the huge number of free SVG icons present on sites like Iamvector.com and create one for yourself.
