Simply Icon Packs: Royalty Free Indie Icons

Simply Icon Packs

Any web designer will tell you how often they are using and searching for icons.

There are several places on the web that offer free icons, but typically either you are required to give credit on your page or the icon isn't part of a comprehensive matching pack, meaning you might find one icon communicating what you need but the net one you find might be a different style. On top of that, often any free or paid for icon styles are limited and you tend to see the same files on many websites.

These consistencies and uniqueness are important when doing high end work, so when I myself was searching for icons to use with my projects it hit me that I could simply draw my own.

Initially I felt I didn't have time to make them myself, but as I increasingly spent more and more time searching for the perfect icon solutions to no avail, it was clear that I couldn't afford the time not to. This ensured each icon was in the same voice, plus after creating a handful based off need within a few months of freelance design work, I had close to a completed set that I could easily use for future projects. Plus they are customizable, so I could change the width of the line, or use of color/no color depending on what I was working on so they were appropriate to the brand still.

Having these ready to go has saved me so much time in my designs, on top of that often clients are delightfully pleased to see more visual communication tools when they didn't expect it.

My partner, a developer, insisted in the value of icons like this from indie designers and encouraged me to make something with the concept. Since I'm basically always excited about starting new projects out there in the world I gladly accepted the challenge.

Hence- the birth of Simply Icon Packs!

Simply Icon Packs logo

The goal of the logo was to make sure "Icon Packs" was most clearly visible from a distance with "Simply" having some more personality. I'm able to use the "Loop & Laurel" symbol as the crown of the logo- providing a subtle link to my two names without being overt. I did some research on other icon making firms out there, and decided on the Italicized Serif font as a way to differentiate to make sure I am my own brand. I actually really like how the Loop & Laurel logo acts like a crown because it reminds me of the word royalty, and I want people to remember these icons are royalty-free and CAN be used for commercial purposes. (Of course they can't be redistributed or sold though). I also like how "Simply" is set up to potentially down the road be a new entity.

140 Modern Business icons- Simply Icon Packs

Something that sets me apart from other icon options is I prepare the icons for color- they are ready to be used as-is but they also may be edited to specific brand colors.

I also offer custom icon add-ons in case a business knows they have specific concepts to communicate that wouldn't be included in the general pack.

Currently, as of July 2nd, I have 2 icon packs available on the website (a simple SquareUp site for now) and also on my new Creative Market page! (I'll write more about that later)

140 Modern Business Icons color + no color (Simply Icon Packs) - Includes for free any future additions (I plan to add 10 more in the near future). Great for developers, designers, hobbyists, etc. Anyone that could benefit from having a ton of visual communication tools on hand.
25 Italian Food & Drink Icons color + no color (Simply Icon Packs) - Perfect for branding, packaging, store signage, menus, sky's the limit! Great for business owners, designers, bloggers, etc.

For now I am working really hard on creating lots of icons! My notebook currently has a page of Travel-related icons that I'll be polishing and bringing them into the computer.

I also want to have fun with mockups of the icons- they can really tell a story of how these icons may be used.

Italian Food and Drink (SimplyIconPacks.com)

So that's it! Wish me luck on creating lots of new icons. It's fun for me to make them (the best part is adding the color). I hope as an indie designer I can figure out how to find people that would be interested in these. (Marketing is my least favorite thing.....unfortunately)

Thanks for reading,
Danielle

[DEALING WITH] Design Style Envy

I hate wasting time; I hate wasting energy. There's too much to accomplish! But this morning I trailed off from redesigning my portfolio on a path I don't hear a ton of graphic designers talking about, regrettably consuming my energy and time into a black hole.

I'm talking about: design style envy. Not lusting over different styles, but the fact designers even have one at all.

After my daily espresso, I searched for inspiration from designers and studios I look up to (Darn Good, Pollen Studios, for example) and realized many of them had something in common- their projects used similar colors, themes, design eras, and textures; they had a style. And I became incredibly envious! It seems like they know themselves, like there's confidence in where they belong in life.

In University we were taught good design meant there were no biases from the designer, a scientific leaning approach. The instructors believed any semblance of personality was 'bad' design. They taught the design process is about the client and listening to every one of their needs before coming up with the (closest to) objective solution specific to them. It would be near impossible if these specific custom solutions happened to have similar color pallets and fonts coming from the same person. Design isn't about ego, it's about solutions. Personality didn't have a place in these solutions.

HOWEVER— now after marveling at these beautiful self-branded portfolios, this principle learned from University is challenged and part of me wants to throw away this mindset all together. These studios consistently create absolutely incredible design and visuals and I wonder if the restraints they set for their branding is actually what lets them create such high quality content. Any designer knows, rules are your best friend! Design principles are always there, is it really horrible to have a general color pallet, pattern and font usage that is consistent amongst projects?

So I want to work through positives, negatives and reasons for having a style as a designer and figure out if this is something all designers should strive for, or if it serves a purpose bigger than what I understand currently. Lets explore!

When would a style be beneficial?

It can make sense on the client end, there's less risk. You visit the portfolio of one of these designers and you essentially know what to expect. You can anticipate the general aesthetics & quality and decide if the personality of your brand aligns with theirs.

It also can make sense from the designer's end. How much simpler of a career would it be to have a brand standard .ai file for yourself!? Or at least a generally similar lettering voice? You might put in extra work up front polishing your colors, type, and creating custom patterns lets say. But after that the eyedropper with a little fine tuning would be your best friend. This would be be much more efficient on the designer's end. And you would still deliver exactly what the client is hoping for, at an expedited rate.

Both the client and designer would benefit from this rough assumption of expectations. It saves time by cutting out the initial sketching and presenting of completely different brand concepts.

When would a style hurt you?

Of course it would turn away many people if their needs weren't represented on your portfolio. If versatility isn't showcased, you better hope your specific style is in demand. (But, being selective in jobs could be seen as a milestone of success to some). Thing is, design principles are forever, but the demand for specific aesthetics might be as fickle as fast fashion. Even if your abilities are broad and you are a multifaceted person, if you present yourself as one personality many individuals and businesses that need help with their own vision, not yours will look elsewhere. They need to be listened to, not told.

I've personally gotten feedback from clients that I was hired because my portfolio showed versatility. This is especially beneficial if you enjoy variety in your day. For me it is not due to desperation that I want to be open to all types of work, I genuinely enjoy variety and the element of surprise. (And need to keep reminding myself of this as I marvel at others' beautiful self-branded portfolios!)

How might long term life goals relate to a style?

It's important to consider your long term goals for your (design?) career, because accommodating potential clients might not even be important to you. Self-awareness is key in your career and lifestyle.

Do you hope to sustain variety in your work and continue to help entrepreneurs (and/or businesses through working at design firms) reach success, without much credit needed? Then maybe you have a passion for the objective design process and should keep a plethora of variety in your work so you can stay open to any opportunities that come your way. If you want to work at a design firm or marketing company, versatility is important. Here the client's unique needs are the focus and there's extensive research plotting that most objective solution to design, as I was taught at University. It definitely has a need and purpose and you are able to create designs completely custom and one-of-a-kind. As long as you are listening to their goals, you will help design meaningful solutions for their brands that impact many.

Do you hope to eventually utilize your years of experience and quality design examples to own your self-created educational content? Maybe start speaking about design and leading others? Then finding the sweet spot of both branding yourself but also showing your versatility should be your pursuit. And I think this is where the designers I was looking at this morning fall into, so it makes sense now. To be a leader you need both a personal brand that expresses who you truly are and content to prove you practice the design principles you preach. It's possible to get in trouble with a fickle identity that needs to change every few years to stay with the times, but I do believe if you stay true to who you really are at the core, and you use versatile enough elements you can do this successfully. If you are showing your true colors (literally) then your brand will have resonance and stability for years to come.

Do you hope to step away from client work all together and dive into the entrepreneurship sector, developing your own companies and entities as a source of income? Then it would make sense to spend efforts on your brand and voice, in order to build credibility as part of a wholistic representation of your values and work. But in this case the value of your portfolio to your lifestyle would be more of a conversation piece and less of what defines your future work. It would be where you have connecting URLS to your own projects that live in their own space. Maybe if you have income from other business pursuits you've created yourself, your portfolio could be more of a fun place to show your art and you can take more risks.

Do you want to step away from the design process and focus more on how to utilize your illustration skills and self-expression in conjunction with the design world? Then absolutely try to narrow in on your primary illustration skills and voice you want to be sought out for. It might take some time to figure out what sort of creative expressions can be consistent enough and work best in conjunction with brands, but if you go this route companies would seek you out for your unique personality, which would feel rewarding I imagine. Of course in this scenario you would still be in the business world, not at the end of the artistic self expression spectrum, optimizing your skills and creativity for compensation from brands rather than being an artist tucked away in a studio expressing your political passions. Having large influential brands hire you for your skills could feel validating, though indeed you can choose to focus on editorial content, or focus solely on small businesses, for your illustrative expressions if you don't like the idea of appeasing to large consumer brands!

In conclusion

There's never going to be a blanket 'right' way to be for your specific path, and worrying about or comparing your portfolio to others with different long term goals than you is a waste of time and energy. It's not so bad to have a style in how you present your work, and can be very beneficial to you, as long as it aligns with the short and long term goals you have set for yourself, which is not going to be consistent with everyone no matter how pretty or self-aware that other portfolio looks.

There's nothing wrong to have those feelings of inadequacy or lust when seeing other portfolios, just like it isn't wrong to have those feelings about a beautiful person. It's perfectly natural and timeless to feel envy, what matters is how we act with these feelings. We can face our feelings head on to analyze what this means for our next steps. It's not feeling happy or stable that motivates us to create, contrarily often it is those feelings of inadequacy that really drives us to move forward. (I recently read a great article where Jessica Walsh admits to something similar.) In an uncomfortable way, we have to embrace these feelings.

It all boils down to looking inward. What do you find important? What are your short term goals? What are your long term goals to work toward?

The primary lesson I've learned is how extremely important it is to understand the difference in presenting yourself as an illustrator/artist vs. designer. Some of the 'designers' I was going to share earlier I realized were actually primarily illustrators, so of course they will have a more consistent personality in their content. When you identify towards an artist, there's space for your personality and expression. When you identify on the other end of the spectrum as an unbiased designer, you will take a more scientific objective approach to your work. Awareness of this spectrum is essential. Maybe it's a good time to consider if you want to be considered more of an illustrator/artist rather than designer. It boils down to who you are at the core and where you belong.

For therapeutic motivations I'll try to reach a personal conclusion to avoid wandering into this time and energy black hole again. To be honest, I have a general idea of my long term goals but I'm still trying to figure that out. For now, I mostly love the freelance lifestyle having variety and getting a rush working directly with entrepreneurs making their ideas come to life and legitimacy with a solid brand. But I connect with them because I also have the entrepreneurial spirit myself, and would love to create products that help people. I'd also like to design a way to earn and direct capital past my myopic point of views and towards important global issues, like climate change, social justice, and peace.

The philosophical connection in design thinking is what keeps me engaged. I can see logically why showing versatility is important, but might not be able to get over the existential arguments for it. After all, if we aren't introducing our unique view points and expressions into the world, what exists from us? Are we merely just deduced down to a tool to get from point A to B? Having at least some loose style is what helps the design world move forward in a way.

So— for now I will keep a variety of styles on my portfolio, though I do think adding a page to show more illustrations and patterns I've created would be important to me to scratch the artistic expression/existential itch. I think some personal branding is important to seam your site together, but for me I don't plan on being a public speaker anytime soon* (*ever) so concentrating on my personal brand doesn't need to be a huge time and energy focus right now. I want to be open to a variety of projects and perhaps while a designer builds their career from branding others with that objective design process, it eventually feels natural and organic to see real value in treating yourself as your own client. [meta] Reaching that level of self awareness without forcing it does sound philosophically appealing, and maybe it's best to relax and let the fruition of this need see its time as I'm still extending my creativity and figuring out who I am at the core. (Right now I just feel confusion and a bit of frustration from my consistent inconsistency!)

Writing this all out really helped me. I'm obviously not a teacher or leader, I just hope to work through my issues publicly to maybe relate to others so we can figure this design thing out together!

If you have any comments or thoughts on the topic I'd love to hear from you! Have you had similar issues with your identity? Do you feel there's another way to see it? I'm all ears.

Thanks for reading,
Danielle

[Hello World] 16 lessons from living in Rome, Italy (so far)

Hello world, welcome to my first blog post. I wanted to start collecting my (many) thoughts from experiences with design, traveling, and maybe whatever else comes up.

If you know me, you know I'm a huge fan of notebooks. Blank notebooks, notebooks with lines, notebooks with preprinted to-do categories. If I'm surrounded by ways to write, sketch, work through and come up with new thoughts, I feel at ease. Like anything is possible.

However, scribbles on pages can be vulnerable. They can be lost, stolen, dunked in water, set on fire, set in jello, you name it. So here's the beginning of a digital notebook. The goal is to be organized, have tags, images, memories, be searchable-! I'm quite excited.

You also may know my tendency to write accidental novels when explaining something. *face palm* So another goal of this blog is to try to improve my writing skills and be more intentional and clever with words. Wish me luck.

On that note, to kick off this new platform I want to share some lessons learned after living here in Rome for the first 4 months (collectively). It might be educational to some, helpful to others, and probably a bit amusing to revisit in a year.

16 Lessons from Living in Rome:

The pizza really is amazing, and make sure to ask for it "calda." IMO hot pizza is best pizza.
You will find yourself no more than 3 blocks from a pizzeria or bar at any given moment.
A "Bar" isn't what you might assume. Think coffee & pastries as a focus rather than desperation & noise.
It's best to assume no one you interact with speaks English, learn a few words first to get by. (And be pleasantly surprised when you're wrong)
When checking out, "Busta?" = Do you want a bag? while, "Basta?" = Is that everything? (It makes people confused if you answer the latter with "no" and an assuring smile + long pause.)
If going out in the world to complete a task, just assume you will encounter an obstacle. (maybe it's national holiday you hadn't heard of? Maybe ALL transportation is on strike? Maybe the office closes every Tuesday from 11am to 4pm?)
Italians can be quite friendly and strike up conversation at stores, which makes you feel guilty if you have to tell them you don't speak much Italian. (So get on that!)
If at the main train station Termini, cling to your phone with padlocks to ensure you keep it.
The touristy spots are pristine, but if you go past these areas in the city you may find billowing trash and what happens when most dog owners don't clean up after their furry friends on the sidewalk. (Watch where you step.) But there's enough beauty to balance it out.
If you know the basics of Spanish and French, you'll be surprised with how much Italian you understand.
Crushed tomatoes are best purchased in glass jars.
Making Italian pasta sauce isn't complicated. Simply heat olive oil and add salt + (quality) crushed tomatoes. Stir once and simmer until the oil integrates with the tomato, maybe 10-15 min.
A bottle of quality local wine can be under 2.5 USD. That doesn't mean you need to buy wine every chance you get.
There is a popular clothing brand here with giant letters, "PYREX." It is not the Corning tupperware containers, though those containers are dope so I want one of these t-shirts for this reason.
You might see something very ornate and old next to something very tacky and new.
Rome is a never ending source of beauty, history, colors, botanics, cats, friendliness, pastries, fresh produce, cheap wine, and therefore inspiration! So appreciate every day; take time to step away from the computer to be aware of the environment and just exist in it.

Maybe in a year from now this list will be different; maybe it will have significant edits. Time will tell. In the meantime I hope to spend the time ahead in awareness and appreciation of where I am. It's my first time living in a different country, a long-time life goal of mine. Wish me luck.

If anyone has suggestions, questions, comments, etc. don't hesitate to reach out!

Below are some more photos from life here.

Thanks for reading,
Danielle

The view from our first bedroom in Re Di Roma. Since we've moved to a different neighborhood.

Near the center of town. Taken from the "Little Train."

Some buildings are old, some are new and freshly painted.

Pastries and tea break. We work a LOT so we try to take our health breaks seriously. :)

Wisteria flowers are in bloom here for a week! So magical.