If designed and managed well, branded icons add clarity and accessibility – and they can serve as identifiers.
Like many of its peers, Quad had historically maintained brand consistency in iconography using a set of minimalist, geometric vector illustrations. With the redesign, they needed a better solution. They had too many art files, too many people, and too many use cases to maintain consistency.
The answer was another brand system staple: custom typography. The Quad icons needed to be a font.
Set up as a font file, Quad Icons is easier to update and implement in application than a vector set.
In addition to making it easier to change colors, using an icon font encourages users across Quad’s many properties to maintain consistency of scale and more easily optimize the weight of the mark; icons can be bold, extra bold , or regular with the click of a button.
Symbols have the flexibility to be used as a glyph in-line with text or as a standalone piece of art.
And, just like any font, Quad Icons can be periodically updated and automatically pushed to all font subscribers.
The range of typefaces in the brand system meets the wide variety of Quad’s communication needs, and Quad Icons is a tech-forward complement to that utility and expression.
A font is easier to update and implement than a vector set.