Iconography

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part of Design · tier 2 · Image · 3 pieces of work carry it · 3 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Bought for web design, mobile apps, and product design systems — the product-icon-system engagement (Oddfellows: 'Netflix, Product Icon System'); brands commission icon families to extend an identity into interface and communication surfaces.

Designing custom icons and pictogram families that align with brand style for digital interfaces or visual communication — systematic small-scale symbol craft: consistent grid, stroke, and metaphor across a set.

Tag it when…

Tag when icon craft is the visible work: icon sets or systems, pictogram families, app-icon design presented as the work. Look for the system tell — multiple symbols sharing grid, stroke weight, and style.

Never tag it when…

Single expressive drawings go to Illustration; interface screens that merely CONTAIN icons go to UI Design; the singular brand mark goes to Logo Design even when symbol-like. An icon-styled LOOK on other work is a style facet, not this craft.

Easily mistaken for 3 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• design illustration — A family of small functional symbols on a shared grid = Iconography; expressive standalone drawings = Illustration
• design ui design — The icon SET as the deliverable = Iconography; the screens the icons live on = UI Design
• design logo branding — One symbol serving as THE brand mark = Logo Design; a system of symbols serving interface/communication = Iconography

At what size it applies

ASSET tag when the piece presents the icon work (a set, a system sheet, an app-icon reveal). Icons visible inside UI screens or demo footage are part of that asset's craft or a MOMENT inside it — never an asset-grain Iconography tag on the containing piece.

Pieces that settle the definition

• Dream job loading … — image 6 — Icon/pictogram craft visible as the piece's work (DB-verified link)
• Introducing gpt-realtime and Realtime API updates for production voice agents | OpenAI — Product-graphic exemplar carrying icon-system craft (DB-verified link)
• Image 11 — Corpus exemplar tagged iconography (DB-verified link)

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.