Choosing the Right Icon Set for SaaS Product Design

Published by Muzli on July 10, 2024

How to Select the Best Icons for Your SaaS Product in 2024

Icons are a small but mighty part of SaaS product design. They help users navigate, understand, and interact with your product seamlessly. But with so many icon sets out there, how do you choose the right one? Let’s dive into what you need to consider and explore some inspiring options.

Key Considerations for Choosing an Icon Set

1. Icon Variety

Ever fallen in love with an icon set only to find it lacks the icons you need? It’s frustrating, especially for large projects. When choosing an icon set, ensure it offers a wide range of icons. A comprehensive set covers all your needs, from common actions like saving and deleting to specific functions unique to your product. This variety helps maintain a consistent look and feel across your entire project.

2. Vector Icons for Scalability

Scalability is crucial. Icons need to look good on all screen sizes, from mobile to desktop. Vector icons, especially SVGs, are perfect because they can be resized without losing quality. They’re also easy to customize — change colors, shapes, or sizes to fit your design without any loss of detail. Plus, vector icons are lightweight, which means faster load times and a better user experience.

3. Icon Font Libraries

Icon font libraries like Font Awesome or Material Icons are incredibly convenient. You can treat icons just like text, applying CSS properties to change their color, size, and more. This makes them highly flexible and easy to manage. They also scale well, ensuring your icons look sharp on any device. And with thousands of icons available, these libraries usually have you covered for any design need.

4. Multiple Styles in Icon Sets

Flexibility is key. Icon sets that offer multiple styles — like line, filled, and colorful versions of the same icon — give you the versatility to adapt to different design contexts while keeping a consistent visual language. For example, you might use line icons for secondary actions and filled icons for primary actions. This differentiation helps users quickly understand and interact with your interface.

Tools for Managing Icon Libraries

Managing a large icon library can be daunting, but organizing them properly in a design system or using the right tools can make a huge difference:

IconJar: This tool lets you organize and manage your icons efficiently. You can search, drag and drop, and export icons easily. It’s perfect for keeping your icon collection tidy and accessible.

Nucleo: With Nucleo, you can organize, customize, and export icons seamlessly. It also offers a large library of icons in multiple styles. It’s a great tool for maintaining consistency and ease of use in your design projects.

IconShelf: IconShelf is a powerful tool for organizing and managing your icon libraries. It supports various formats and allows you to keep all your icons in one place, making it easy to find and use them when needed.

Fontello: Fontello allows you to create custom icon fonts from a selection of icons, simplifying the integration of icons into your projects. It helps in managing icon fonts effectively, ensuring that your icons are scalable and easy to use.

Icones: is a comprehensive platform for browsing and exploring a vast collection of icons from various sources. It provides an intuitive interface for searching and previewing icons, making it easy to find the perfect icons for your projects and integrate them seamlessly.

Websites for Purchasing High-Quality Icons

If you’re looking to buy high-quality icons, here are some excellent websites to consider:

UI8: UI8 offers a wide range of high-quality icons and other design assets, perfect for professional use.
Iconscout: Provides a vast library of icons, illustrations, and other design resources. You can purchase individual items or subscribe for access to their entire collection.
Iconfinder: Offers a vast collection of icons in various styles. You can purchase individual icons or subscribe for unlimited downloads.
The Noun Project: Provides a wide range of icons created by designers from around the world. You can buy icons individually or subscribe for unlimited access.
Icons8: Offers a large library of free and premium icons in multiple styles. Icons8 also provides tools for customizing and managing icons.
Flaticon: Features a huge selection of free and premium icons. You can download icons in various formats and styles.
Streamline Icons: Known for its high-quality, detailed icons, Streamline Icons offers a comprehensive library that’s perfect for professional projects.

Inspirational Icon Sets

Here are some top-notch icon sets to consider:

Feather Icons: Simple, elegant, and open-source, Feather Icons are perfect for modern, clean interfaces.
Font Awesome: This popular library offers a vast range of icons with extensive customization options.
Material Icons: Created by Google, these icons follow Material Design guidelines and come in both line and filled versions.
Heroicons: Beautiful, hand-crafted SVG icons available in outline and solid versions, suitable for various design needs.

Conclusion

Choosing the right icon set is crucial for creating a seamless, intuitive user experience. Look for a set with a wide variety of icons, opt for scalable vector icons, consider using icon font libraries, and choose sets with multiple styles for flexibility. Tools like IconJar, Nucleo, and Fontello can help you manage your icons efficiently. By keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to selecting the perfect icons for your SaaS product, ensuring it’s both functional and visually appealing.

Remember, the right icons do more than just look good — they enhance usability and make your product more intuitive and enjoyable for your users.

And finally, how can we end without a bit of icon inspiration? Here are some excellent icon sets to get your creative juices flowing:

ICONSAUR — User Interface Icon Set

2400+ unique handcraft UI icons. Based on Bootstrap. SVG, PNG, and Figma components inside.

Pixelins Thin Icons

high-quality icon set with 1236 icons carefully crafted on 20–24–32px grid sizes, including hand-optimized 1 & 2px stroke variations for each grid. 1236 icons × 3 grids × 2 strokes, in total you get 7416 pixel perfect icons.

Emerald Icons — 5,000+ Icons

5000+ icons & 150+ social media icons and company logos. Emerald Icons is a high-quality vector UI icons library that provides multiple formats and styles. Made for designers and developers.

Ultimate Notion Icons

A huge collection of 155 icons in Notion style. These icons illustrations will fit nicely into the design of your presentations, web pages, UI design and social media posts.