Icons are a great way to improve the usability of a website. They can help visitors navigate your site and find the good stuff faster. But choosing the right icons is important. In general, icons should be used to supplement the text and improve the usability of a website. That's why using Font Awesome with Webflow is a great choice. 

This article will show you how to add Font Awesome icons to your Webflow project, step-by-step, and how to use Webflow icons. With just a few clicks, you'll be able to add these beautiful icons and take your design to the next level. So let's get started!

Introduction To Webflow Icon Fonts

Webflow Icon Fonts screen
Source : Unsplash

Webflow is a great platform for building dynamic and responsive websites. One of the things that makes it so powerful is the ability to use icon fonts in your designs. 

The platform includes a drag-and-drop editor, CSS customizer, and preview. In addition to the basic features of the platform, Webflow also includes support for using fonts from the Google Fonts library and Font Awesome library.

Font Awesome is a huge icon repository that can be easily integrated into your Webflow icon library. And because they're vector icons, they scale beautifully on all devices. So if you're looking for a way to improve the usability of your website, using Font Awesome with Webflow is a great option.

Font Awesome offers a large selection of icons that you can use for personal or commercial projects. While some users may know how to add these icons, others may be inexperienced and need some guidance.

What To Consider When Using Webflow Icons?

word font
Source : Unsplash

Webflow icons are a great way to add extra visual interest and appeal to your web designs. However, before using them, it's important to understand a few key principles:

Consistency 

We need to use a single style for all webflow icons to keep the visual identity of the website. If we use a particular icon design throughout the website, we need to make sure that all of the icons follow the same aesthetic. When using webflow icons, we need to make sure that the icons fit with the overall look and feel of the site.

Context

Without the right context, an icon can be easily misinterpreted. To avoid confusion, use webflow icons in the correct context and designate them with relevant labels. Pay attention to the tone of your icon usage as well – a playful icon might not be appropriate in a more serious setting. With these things in mind, you'll be able to use webflow icons effectively and create stunning designs!

Scalability

When choosing icons for your Webflow project, consider using scalable, vector-based icons to avoid sacrificing quality. SVG files are vector-based and can be easily scaled to multiple sizes without losing quality, making them ideal for creating icons. Plus, using vector-based icons means that they can be easily resized and used in different contexts without losing any detail or fidelity.

Loading experience

One of the most important things to consider is the loading experience. To speed up your website and reduce loading times, make sure you don't underestimate the icon optimization process. It will also help to improve user experience on your website. 

For instance, you can use Font Awesome to speed up website loading and the user experience as a result.

By keeping these things in mind, you can ensure that your webflow icons are used effectively and contribute positively to the overall user experience on your website!

Free and Paid Icon Fonts

There are many different ways to get icons onto your website. You can use free icon fonts like Font Awesome, or you can pay for an icon font like Icons8.

Both Font Awesome and Icons8 have their own websites where you can browse and download icons. Font Awesome also has a plugin for Sketch, which makes it easy to add icons to your designs.

Icons8 offers both free and paid icon fonts. The free icons are available in PNG format, while the paid icons are available in SVG format. Icons8 also offers a premium subscription that gives you access to all of their icons, as well as some other features like customer support and priority updates.

How to install Icon Fonts

First and foremost, you should always download your icon font files from reputable third-party sources such as Google Icon Fonts or Font Awesome. In this example, we will go through the process of downloading and installing icon fonts from Font Awesome.

Once you have downloaded the icon font file, you will need to unzip it. After that, log in to your Webflow account and navigate to the project where you want to use the icon fonts. Go to Project Options > Fonts > Custom Fonts > Download. Select the unzipped icon font file from your computer and click “Upload”.

When using webflow icons, one thing to keep in mind is the category of icons you choose. 

We have selected the Solid category and copied the icon font from this category to paste into design. The font style should be selected the same as the icon category from the cheatsheet. This will help ensure that your icons display correctly on your website.

Webflow icon fonts on the Webflow dashboard
Source: Webflow

There are many ways to work with icons in Webflow. This method is considered to be very flexible and can help you work smarter and faster. Based on your development skills and design creativity, there are many possibilities that can help you work smarter and faster. 

How Do I Make SVG icons for icon fonts ?

Icon fonts are simply fonts that contain symbols instead of typical characters from the alphabet. They have become increasingly popular in web development in recent years due to their scalability, performance and ability to recolor them without maintaining a large amount of image files.

It is very inconvenient when you have a bunch of vector icons of different sizes and styles, each in a separate document, and you want to create a consistent and uniform icon font.

Adobe Illustrator has a great solution to this problem called "Coating Areas" that allows you to store a large number of icons in one place and export them all to SVG format. This is extremely handy when you have a bunch of vector icons of different sizes and styles, each in a separate document. With icon fonts, you can easily create a consistent and unified set of webflow icon svg that are easy to manage and track.

How Export Icons To Svg Using Illustrator Artboards 

adobe blog screen
Source : Adobe

First, drag and drop the selected SVG files onto the Adobe Illustrator canvas. Next, select all the icons you want to include in the font. 

Once you've selected all the icons you want, give them each a unique name. 

To export your icons as SVG files, first make sure they're placed on an Artboard. Then go to File > Export > Export for Screens. In the Export for Screens dialog box, select SVG from the Format drop-down menu. You can also choose to export all icons in different sizes and formats by selecting the 'All Sizes' and 'All Formats' options.

Create An Icon Font

IcoMoon Icons
Source : Icomoon

There are several free online tools you can use, including icomoon and Fontello. In our case, we will use icomoon:

  • You need to drag and drop the selected SVGs and create a new set
  • Select all the icons that you want to include in the font
  • Create the font itself
  • Rename all icons
  • Download generated files

Congratulations! If you've followed all the steps, you've created your first icon font.

To use your icon font on a website, copy the CSS code contained in "style.css" into your own CSS file and the "fonts" folder into the root folder of the website. Make sure the downloaded fonts are linked to the imported CSS and properly placed in "fonts/".

That's all there is to it! With just a few clicks, you can create a completely custom font icon for your next web project.

By downloading the generated files, you can upload them to your Webflow project and use them in your designs. To do this, simply open up a new file in your favorite text editor and copy all of the text below into it. Next, save the file as a .txt file and rename it to something more descriptive. Finally, upload the generated fonts to your Webflow project. That's all there is to it!

Best Practices for Using Webflow Icon Fonts

When using Webflow icon elements, there are a few best practices to keep in mind.

  • First, be sure to specify the icon font family in the CSS. This will ensure that the icons render correctly on all devices.
  • Second, always use the correct class names when referencing an icon. For instance, if you want to use the "home" icon, be sure to use the class "webflow icon element-home".
  • Third, make sure to increase the size of the icons as needed. Icons can be increased by using the "font-size" property in CSS.
  • Lastly, be sure to test your icons on all devices before publishing your site. By following these simple best practices, you can ensure that your icons will look great and function properly on all devices.

Conclusion

With Webflow's icon fonts, you can add an extra layer of creativity to your designs. They are great for emphasizing and calling attention to certain elements on a page or creating an overall look that has visual impact. 

We hope this quick tutorial has helped you get started with using Webflow icon fonts and given you some ideas about how to incorporate them into your own projects. If you want to learn more about designing with these creative tools, we recommend checking out our other tutorials on the subject!

Camilo Mendez

"128.digital delivered the website, and we are happy with its final outcome. The vendor followed the project according to the plan and impressed us with their design, commitment, and quality service. They also ensured effective communication via Invision, ActiveCollab, and Google Chat."

10.11.2022
Product Manager, Crant
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Official Webflow Expert