☕ Poo Storms, Pixels & Perfect Curves: Designing Font Awesome 6 with Jory Raphael

In this iconic episode of Podcast Awesome, Matt is joined by Font Awesome’s Senior Icon Designer Jory Raphael and Co-founder Travis Chase to explore what made Font Awesome 6 not just a major update — but a major upgrade.

From adopting Figma as a design tool to refining styles across the entire icon set, Jory shares how a more cohesive design system (and a few poop jokes) helped shape the boldest, nerdiest, most delightful version of Font Awesome yet.

🎨 In this episode, we cover:

• How Font Awesome 6 broke from v5 with smarter, more consistent icon design
• Jory’s favorite (and weirdest) icons from the new sets
• The journey from Freelance Icon Jealousy™️ to hiring Noah Jacobus
• Collaborating with the United Nations on meaningful icons for humanitarian work
• Why the “Poo Storm” icon exists… and what that says about Font Awesome’s design culture

If you're a designer, icon enthusiast, or curious nerd who loves the blend of polish and playfulness, this one’s a must-listen.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

• 00:10 – Font Awesome 6: A new chapter in icon design
• 02:30 – Rebuilding icons with rules, rhythm, and range
• 04:01 – Designing with purpose across branding + UI
• 06:30 – How to keep icon design fun (and sharp)
• 13:39 – Meet Noah Jacobus: icon wizard, now full-time at FA
• 14:36 – Jory & Travis share their favorite weird and wonderful icons

🔗 Links & Credits

• Explore Font Awesome 6
• Why We Switched to Figma
• Font Awesome x UN OCHA: Humanitarian Icons
• Meet Noah Jacobus on Nerd Show and Tell
   🎵 Theme by Ronnie Martin
  🎶 Music by Zach Malm
  🎛️ Audio mastering by Chris Enns at Lemon Productions
• Font Awesome 6 Is Live! See the New Icons, Styles and Upgrade Without the Hassle
• 10 Reasons We Switched to Figma For Icon Design
• Font Awesome and OCHA Partner to Create Humanitarian Icons
• Nerd Show and Tell: Meet Noah Jacobus, Icon Designer Extraordinaire

Highlights
 
"..Noah Jacobus is one of those icon designers who his work just constantly has made me jealous. He posts things that I wish I had designed and his skill and detail and creativity I find amazing. We actually got him to work a little bit on some contract work for us a little while ago as kind of sneakily, get him excited working with us at Font. Awesome. He finally popped the question and he is here working with us. And I'm so excited because I'm excited because he's a better icon designer than I am. And so that means that our stuff is just going to get better, and it also means that I can focus on some other things as well at Font awesome."

"... Part of the core of Font Awesome is to have fun with things. It makes it so much more interesting to include an icon like the Poo storm icon. That was a joke. I was designing a set of weather icons and a cloud icon has some very similar curves to an icon of Poop. And I was designing a cloud icon and it had a little lightning bolt. And so I just took the Poop icon and added a lightning bolt and it's resonated with a lot more people than I thought it would."

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