What Are Icon Fonts and Why Do Web Developers Love Them?

Did you know that global internet users reached 4.66 billion in 2021? The internet penetration rate makes websites and apps more crucial for businesses.

Because of that, web designers and developers are stepping up their game. Graphical icons are now an essential part of site and app-building.

Apart from image formats, developers love using icon fonts. But what are they, and why are they popular?

Continue reading this article on icon fonts to learn more.

What Is an Icon Font?

An icon font is a text file that developers can change using CSS. They scale better than raster image files. Because of that, the size of icon fonts won’t affect their visual quality.

Icon fonts are also essential in making a great-looking web design. It helps give personality to your websites, which helps in brand building. They offer consistency to make your app more appealing to the international audience.

With an icon font, changing colors or adding shadows become simpler. You can also make one to fit your brand.

Nowadays, icon fonts are menu icons, buttons, and even download links. Despite their current uses, there was a time when they fell out of favor with web developers.

One of the problems web designers have with icon fonts is with glyphs. In the past, single glyphs had monochrome colors. While colors could change, you couldn’t put more than one into the design.

Before, icons were images. But image files are large, and they take up a lot of space. Because of that, web designers looked for alternatives like SVGs.

What Are SVGs and How They Work

Scalable Vector Graphics or SVGs allow the display of vector graphics in the browser. Nowadays, icon fonts are a collection of these files. Because of that, SVGs are becoming the newest standards for web animations and icons.

These files offer you better scaling. They also often provide faster and more reliable rending than icon fonts.

Most of the compositions of vector graphics are codes. Due to that, web designers don’t need to import them from large external files.

Apart from that, they have smaller sizes to JPG or PNG files. These features allow you to manage your icon collection better.

SVGs work like your usual regular image element in HTML. It uses all width and height attributes available to adjust icon dimensions. Despite that, it can limit your customizing abilities on SVG files.

To customize, inline your SVG by pasting the code into the HTML. It allows developers to change colors or add filters by hitting CSS.

Novice web designers often find SVG codes intimidating at first. But the truth is that designing and controlling these icons is easy. You can even use illustrator programs to make your vector graphic icons.

You only need to save them as SVG files. Another option is to generate the code within the Illustrator interface.

SVGS and Icon Fonts: What Makes Them Different

Icon fonts are not always the most reliable nor efficient option, but they’re still relevant. They’re easy to apply, so many developers incorporate them in their web design. Depending on how many icons you use, switching to SVGs can be counterproductive.

There are other notable differences between an icon font and an SVG file. Here are some of them:

Size

By adding styles to SVG icon fonts, their file size can increase fast. Not only that, but the code will also become bulky. Moreover, you can’t cache inline SVG codes, unlike external SVG files.

But when you put many icons on a single page, these fonts offer a smoother user experience. The only catch is if you use premade icon font sets. There are instances where you’ll waste resources on unused icons.

Ten optimized SVG icons will still have a smaller file than a whole icon library. Although, you can fix this issue by making a custom icon library.

Performance

Unlike most SVGs, you can cache an icon font. Because of that, they load faster from the browser. The downside is that they create more HTTP requests.

When you inline SVG icons, you don’t need extra HTTP requests, but the browser can’t cache them. To have a cacheable icon, use external SVGs instead.

Their performance often differs in speed. But this will still depend on the file sizes of each icon. Your team can run tests using both to see which loads faster.

The Current Struggles With Icon Fonts

All web designers want to become capable of simplifying scaled-down icons. Not only that, but they also want to offer more details or changes when increasing its size.

Your icons will still have the same designs no matter what size they have. It can benefit you with icon consistency despite the dimension changes. But it can also create legibility issues.

Keep in mind that icons are monochrome. While you can layer them with newer shapes and colored gradients, icon fonts can only have one color. This issue creates creative limitations for web designers.

Because of that, SVG icons are better if you want a complex design.

Apart from that, icon fonts have no great fallback. Once the web fonts don’t load, you won’t see any icon on your site or mobile app. Some options can resolve it, but it adds more work for you and your team.

Unloadable icons can confuse your website visitors. This issue can affect lead generation and profit from your site.

You also have the issue of icon fonts on international Opera Mini users. People around the globe can access your website, and not everyone has the same devices.

Icon fonts that don’t work on international sites can cause decreases in traffic to your website. Because of that, you can fail in attracting your target market.

Understanding Why Web Developers Love Icon Fonts

Despite the struggles with icon fonts, many web designers love using them. Having a working set of icons on your website makes it more appealing and easier to use.

Not only that, but they provide the consistency that can help with brand awareness. Icon fonts are always works-in-progress and relevant in web design.

Did you like reading this article? Discover more relevant content like this today. Check our blog posts on topics like SEO and social media.