Since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, SFU students, instructors and staff have suddenly found themselves learning and teaching exclusively online. What I’ve found interesting is that small identifiers for us as individuals or groups have suddenly taken on much more importance. In the past, how often have we ignored the prompt to add a personal icon to a social media site? But when you are represented only online, that imagery takes on much more importance. At CEE, our more casual conversations take place on Slack.
The above examples are the icons we created to represent a couple of our teams. They were made in Adobe Illustrator, but could just have easily been made in a variety of online platforms like vectr.com or vectorizer.io. They could also be made in Powerpoint, or be sourced online. The keys are to keep it simple, with easy-to-read font and one or two colours. You do not have to use text at all- simple, bright shapes can be effective as well. Contact us if you need help to set up your own icons.