This post came from the Aestiva Solutions quarterly newsletter, the Campfire. To subscribe, click here.
Happy Holidays! We hope you are managing well at the end of the semester and calendar year.
As we’ve worked on projects over the years, one of our favorite people to partner with is Megan West. She’s a professional graphic designer and communications expert. The biggest takeaway we have from working with Megan is to use icons everywhere, as incorporating icons is much easier than you may initially think. In this issue of the Campfire, we’ll talk about three ways to incorporate icons into your work.
Add icons on LibGuide tabs
One little known fact about LibGuides is that they have the Font Awesome suite of icons built right into their coding. This includes hundreds of icons that you can use all over your guides. One fun place to use an icon is on your tabs. To add icons to your tabs, you just use a tab name that looks like this
<i class=”fa fa-calendar” aria-hidden=”true”></i> Schedule
“Schedule” is the tab name and “fa-calendar” is the icon that shows up before it. You can find all the icons and their names on the Font Awesome site. Make sure to include the aria-hidden code so that screen readers will ignore these icons.
Incorporate icons in reports
When Eric gets the opportunity to speak at faculty department meetings he always brings a one page handout highlighting library happenings. While it is tempting to put so. much. information. in these reports, less is definitely more. Icons are a great way to shine light on what you really want to get across, like in this report to a nursing department that Eric wrote in 2019. Noun Project has a rich variety of icons that are easy to put into any document.
Use icons on your website
Of course, many libraries already use icons on their website, but it’s worth considering other places to add more. We really like the way Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s Thorne Library has added these icons to guide users to the right search for their needs.
Looking for help in communicating with your community through icons and other graphic arts? Aestiva Solutions can help you create websites and reports that will drive home your message.
We’d love to chat with you anytime!
Ruth and Eric