Member-only story
SF Symbols, and how much they can actually do
The customisation, animation, and small details that turn icons into interface
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When SF Symbols launched back in 2019, I treated them the way most developers did. As a free icon library. A nice-to-have. Something to grab a heart or a chevron from when I needed one.
It took me years to realise that’s not really what they are.
SF Symbols aren’t an icon set. They’re a system. A set of vector glyphs that respond to weight, scale, colour, and motion in ways that match the rest of your interface automatically. They sit on top of San Francisco, the system font, which is why they always look right next to your text. They animate when you tell them to. They re-render in different modes without you redrawing anything.
I’ve built a lot of UI on Apple platforms over the past few years, and somewhere along the way SF Symbols stopped being a fallback. They became the first thing I reach for when I’m prototyping an interface.
Here’s what I wish I’d understood about them sooner.
