Vic Bell on Designing Graphite: Hand-Drawn Icons for Font Awesome

In this episode, Matt and Jory sit down with UK-based icon designer + illustrator Vic Bell to talk about the brand-new Font Awesome icon pack, Graphite — a loose, hand-drawn set that brings texture, depth, and a whole lot of human personality to iconography.

If you’ve ever tried to balance clarity vs. creativity, or wondered how icons can feel more like typefaces with different “voices”, this one’s for you. 🎧

🗒️ What We Cover in This Episode

👋 How Vic and Jory connected
✏️ Designing Font Awesome Pro Plus packs and how “Small Batch” became a thing
🧠 Vic’s creative journey: trends, taste, and identity
🏠 Why icons are storytelling at micro-scale
⚖️ The tension between clarity and creativity
🧰 Illustrator vs. Figma for icon design
📲 Custom brushes and iPad sidecar workflows

🕒 Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction and Welcome
0:46 - How Vic and Jory Connected
2:48 - Font Awesome Icon Packs Overview
5:42 - Vic's Creative Journey and Evolution
7:45 - The Hand-Drawn "Graphite" Icon Style
10:17 - Reflections on Icon Design as a Career
13:41 - Childhood Influences and the Magic of Small Things
17:18 - Creative Process and Personalization
22:19 - Trusting the Creative Process
23:32 - Project Validation and Creative Freedom
25:15 - Technical Challenges and Implementation
26:23 - Future of Font Awesome Icon Packs
30:52 - Illustrator vs. Figma for Icon Design
31:28 - Creating Custom Brushes and Using iPad
38:38 - Balancing Clarity and Creativity in Icon Design
47:37 - Releasing Icon Packs and Delayed Gratification

🔗 Links & Resources

Vic Bell: / vic_bell
Font Awesome: https://fontawesome.com/
Web Awesome: https://webawesome.com/
Theme music by Ronnie Martin
Interstitial music by Zach Malm

Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!