screenshot of the noun project website
When you’re selecting icons from an online resource, keep the design style consistent. This helps your presentation look professional. For example, the beach-related icons above are completely different styles and would look odd if they were all used on the same slide.
The Orion icon library is a great resource as you can filter the results by style – line, solid, colour, or flat.
Whenever you’re drawing on an online resource, it is important to know your way around the various licences involved. We’ve got a quick guide to Creative Commons for the uninitiated.
And for more wonderful resources, check portuguese phone code out our free online design resources blog post!
A final tactic to track down handy icons is to use a pictorial font, such as Wingdings (and Wingdings 2 and 3). You’ll have to do a bit of digging – and don’t forget the numbers and punctuation! Here’s what I found:
Varied symbols including pointing hands, thumbs up, arrows, phone, floppy disk, scissors, flag, flower, bell and more.
Mining a pictorial font for icon gold allows you to avoid crediting another creator. Wingdings is accessible no matter what version of PowerPoint you’re using. You can change the size and colour of the pictograms, increase line thickness by bolding the text, and then place them on custom icon holders to rapidly create a set of presentation icons.
Speaking of custom icon holders… See what I did there? Seamless. Popping icons on coloured custom holders is a quick and easy way to bring generic icons from PowerPoint, or an online resource, in line with your branding. And, once you’ve made one, you can copy and paste it to your heart’s content!
Before you start, make sure your brand colours are set as the PowerPoint theme colours. This will make it easier to stick to the right colours when you’re designing your icon holders. Not sure how to change theme colours? Read this easy-to-follow guide.
Custom icon holders: 3 ways
Examples of 3 types of icon style: split colour, playful shapes, shadow.