Best practices

What—and what not—to do when using iconography.

Styling

Do use the icon assets in our library.

The official cart icon from the icon library.

Don’t modify or change icons.

The cart icon with added lines and embellishments.

Do partner with the Design System team to create icons that aesthetically adhere to our system.

A shoe icon in our linear 2px visual style.

Don’t create icons that have a visually different style.

A filled shoe icon with lots of fine line work and detail.

Do use icons for their intended subject matter.

A search input with a search icon and placeholder text.

Don’t use multiple icons to create a new icon or larger graphic.

A search input with a search icon and placeholder text. This search icon has a heart icon inside of it.

Do use a single color for icons.

An icon in a single black color.

Don’t segment an icon into multiple colors.

An icon with random pink and blue coloring.

Do use our existing filled or active versions of icons when applicable.

A filled home icon used in the bottom navigation bar.

Don’t create your own filled or active versions of icons.

A filled cart icon placed in a top navigation bar.

Don’t rotate, skew, or stretch icons.

Don’t alter the stroke weights of an icon.

Don’t apply gradients or other effects to icons.

Don’t fill icons with patterns or imagery.

Size and spacing

Do create icons at our standard sizes.

An icon with a measurement indicator of 24px.

Don’t create arbitrarily-sized icons.

An icon with a measurement indicator of 32px, which is not one of the available sizes.

Do use our provided icon sizes. Our icons are drawn at each size to maintain proper stroke weights across the experience.

Two icons, one at 24px with a 2px stroke and the other at 16px with a 2px stroke.

Don’t scale an icon to different sizes. This creates an imbalance in stroke weight next to our other carefully drawn sizes.

Two icons, one is a 16px icon scaled to 24px which created a 3px stroke. The other is a 24px icon scaled to 16px which created a 1.25px stroke.

Do use icons that optically fit inside buttons. In general, use an icon that is half the size of a button (for example, place a 16px icon in a 32px button).

A collection of icon buttons with the proper icon sizes inside. The 48px button has a 24px icon, the 40px button has a 20px icon, and the 32px button has a 16px icon.

Don’t use icons that appear too small or large for a button size.

A collection of icon buttons with the improper icon sizes inside. The 48px button has a 20px icon, the 40px button has a 16px icon, and the 32px button has a 24px icon.

Do give enough space between icons and text.

Don’t crowd icons and text too closely together.

Subject matter

Do use the icons to represent correct subject matter.

An icon next to a block of text. The text describes managing inventory and the icon is a package.

Don’t use an icon for subject matter it doesn’t represent.

An icon next to a block of text. The text describes managing inventory and the icon is a lock.

Do use icons to guide users with purpose.

A button with an icon and text inside. The icon is a heart and the text is “Save seller”.

We love iconography.

A grid of heart icons forming an image with the text “we love iconography” inside.

Amount

Do try to consolidate icons to ones that are truly necessary for navigation and actions.

A search results page with a minimal amount of icons.

Don’t overuse icons that cause the hierarchy of the page or navigation and actions to become difficult to understand. When more than one action is needed, an overflow menu is a good option.

A search results page with too many icons scattered across item tiles.

Change log

DateNotes
Jun, 2024
  • Updated to eBay Evo