RAVELRY

Icon Set

Style development and execution for 200+ icons.

Ravelry is an independently run community website and resource for knitters and crocheters. They average about 1,000,000 active users per month with a user base of almost 10 million. All this achieved by a small team of 6!

These impressive statistics are mentioned to demonstrate how important nailing their recent redesign was.

Ravelry commissioned me to develop an icon style that was scalable and unique to the site’s character and execute ~200 icons.

CLIENT
Ravlery

ART DIRECTION
Livia Nelson

Illustration of knitting items including yarn balls, a red sweater, frog face, and knitting needles with red ends, each shown in large and small sizes.
A grid of colorful, diverse icons including symbols of office items, technology, animals, food, and various objects, all arranged in a structured layout on a white background.

Key words to describe Ravelry are handmade, heartfelt, caring, imperfect, mighty, and expressive.

We began the process with a deep dive on where the icons would predominantly live. What color backgrounds? What sizes? Are they accompanied with text? Hover/alt titles?

Illustration of two Boston Terriers and two balls of yarn, one colored and one monochrome.

Illustration by Ravelry / Sara Bicknell

Next, I took some inspiration from their new illustrations to create style tests to discover some visual motifs, color palettes, and shape language.

We ended up with 4 directions that all felt like the fit in the world we’re aiming for with some minor stylistic differences.

Illustration of various icons in columns labeled: Stash (yarn 32), Tools (hooks 32), Project (sweater 32), Frogged, Folder, and Hot. Each column contains related icons such as yarn balls, crochet hooks, sweaters, frog faces, folder icons, and fire flames.

Both the client and myself aligned immediately on the flat shapes of color with line-work for detail. Next we stress tested it against a few more icons.

Collection of crafting and knitting icons, including a speech bubble, pencil, yarn heart, sweater, color palette, books, credit card, bowl of yarn, yarn balls, envelope, molecule structure, knitting chat bubbles, checklist, leaves, yarn ball, spool of thread, knitting needles, yarn heart, and yarn location pin.

Setting up some basic simple rules go a long way.

Now that we trust things are working correctly and feel unified, we established rules so all 200+ icons would feel consistent.

Illustration showing various objects like a blue sweater with loose threads, a red heart with yarn patterns, a lumpy blue yarn ball, a yellow folder, a document with threadlike loops, and a pencil with a black line. Each object has labels indicating features such as organic shapes, handmade goods, and black lines.
Screenshot of the Ravelry website showing a redesigned look with navigation links and search options.
Screenshot of Ravelry pattern search results page showing various knitting patterns including shawls, pullovers, and hats with filters on the left side and pagination options.
Image showcasing a collection of small illustrated icons related to knitting and crochet, including a ball of yarn, knitting needles, a frog, and various colorful symbols and objects, with the word 'ravelry' in red at the top left corner.

Got a Project?

Person with light purple hair and mustache wearing a black shirt, standing in front of a digitally illustrated backdrop with palm trees and abstract shapes.
Abstract art with an orange starburst, green scribble, and white curved shape on a white background.

MORE WORK

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MORE WORK ✱

Cartoon character drumming and jumping with joy.
Billboard with Chase logo and text 'NOW OPEN', featuring colorful cityscape illustration and website link chase.com/Boston, surrounded by trees.
Stylized illustration of a blue sports car with a large rear wing and flames coming from the exhaust, on a black background.
Abstract sculpture with large eyes and geometric shapes in pastel colors on a light background.
Animated scene depicting a person standing beside a street piano on an urban sidewalk, with a colorful storefront in the background.