I’ve been using webfonts in my software designs for a while now, and finding it really speeds up the design and build process and allows me to distribute the icons and icon updates across my design files, multiple web browsers, resolutions (no retina images) and embedded across multiple Mobile environments (Android and iOs) all with the same font file.
When you find a set that suits the typography and branding really well AND is well implemented with the way you insert them into the page it can really help, where possible i try to find a complete set instead of collating and generating a set of my own.
So the criteria for my top picks:
- Style (Visual appeal)
- Completeness (No need to go outside the set to find icons for your app)
- Ease of use (Can you throw it next to helvetica and it looks aligned)
- Standard by Symbolset – http://symbolset.com/icons/standard
Solid and clean - Gizmo by Symbolset – http://symbolset.com/icons/gizmo
Lined looks great in large icons - Pika by Symbolset – http://symbolset.com/icons/pika
Solid clean with some rounded quirky attitude - Typicons – http://typicons.com/
Solid and Lined versions, clean for wide variety of uses - Entypo – http://www.entypo.com/
Solid and clean, and my introduction to font icons, however moved away because it required a bunch of css updates when next to helvetica so it looked aligned. this could have been solved with re creating the font with a different baseline value in the font.
If your interested in an article on how to build your own icon font sets, comment and i’ll write one up.