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Systems
ULK - Icon Library & Visual Language
ActiveA custom icon system built for ULK, ensuring visual consistency, performance, and accessibility across every platform using the design system.
- Domain
- Icon system Visual language Design system
- Tools
- Affinity Designer Nucleo Git SVG
- Timeline
- Developed from 2022, updated regularly through the ULK Git repository. Documentation improvements expected 2026.
A custom icon system built for ULK, ensuring visual consistency, performance, and accessibility across every platform using the design system.
Context
Designed to align with the communication department's print identity and iconography guidelines, while staying legible at small interface sizes: a balance between graphic clarity and institutional consistency.
Structure & logic
- Each icon hand-drawn on a strict 16 × 16 px grid, with a defined visual grammar for stroke weight and minimum spacing
- Icons organised into themed families (navigation, social, transport, symbols...)
- Exported to SVG and webfont formats for flexible integration
Workflow & tools
- Designed in Affinity Designer on shared artboards
- Exported as clean SVGs, then imported into Nucleo for naming, prefixing (ulkicon-*), categorisation and bundling
- Deployed as a dynamic SVG sprite and webfont via the ULK assets pipeline
Accessibility features
- Monocolor, styled via CSS (color, size, opacity) without additional assets
- Consistent legibility preserved across all scales
- Clean integration with screen readers when paired with proper markup
Collaboration & status
Actively maintained, updated regularly via the ULK Git repo. Next goals: improved icon documentation, visual search by category. Deployment of improved docs expected 2026.
