# Icons — Aleris Brand OS concept bundle

Sources in order; each file follows as it stands in the corpus, frontmatter first.

<!-- source: principles/iconography.md · status: accepted -->

---
title: Icons
lang: en
status: accepted
type: principles/identity-element
layer: principle
depends_on:
  - foundation/colour
  - foundation/typography
  - foundation/voice
  - foundation/constant-contextual
  - foundation/emotional-modes
  - foundation/imagery
propagates_to:
  - communication/web
  - communication/presentations
  - communication/print
  - physical/interior
  - baseline
last_verified: 2026-08-11
translation_status: verified
translation_source: foundation/iconography.md
---

# Icons

## How icons work at Aleris

Icons carry information, not identity. They communicate a concept in an instant, and an icon is often at its best when it goes unnoticed — it simply works. What keeps them coherent across everything Aleris makes is consistency of style: we draw from one icon family and hold to a single style within any given product, rather than mixing weights or swapping in icons from elsewhere. That visual steadiness is what reads as considered and trustworthy — the common thread that runs through the work without asking to be seen.

How freely we interpret and play with icons varies by context. The same icon can be right in an internal workshop deck and wrong in a patient letter — not because the medium differs, but because the cost of being misread differs: high for a patient, low for a colleague. So Aleris sorts icon use into four contexts: patient-facing, internal digital tools, presentations and internal material, and signage and wayfinding. The context decides which icons are allowed; the consequence of getting it wrong decides how strict the selection is.

Underneath all four sits a short, constant floor: things we never use — weapons, logos, religious symbols, anything aggressive or alarmist — because they don't fit the Present Expert in any context. Everything above that floor is a question of context, and the table below is the calibration.

---

## What icons do — and don't do

### Navigation — where do I go?

The icon helps people navigate to the right place or content. As a rule it lives in digital services, where icons have specific roles that follow established conventions — an arrow, a map pin, a flag. Counter-example: icons where the navigational link is something you invented yourself, such as a walking person.

### Status — what's happening here?

The icon helps people understand what's going on in a context. As a rule it lives in digital services, following established conventions — an open or closed envelope, a play or stop symbol, a checkmark that something is done. Counter-example: an arrow (navigation), a map (an object with no status value), or weather icons (outside the weather context).

### Category — what is this?

The icon aids scanning and visual support. It can make a list surveyable without reading every row — an icon per specialty in a list, or icons for document types. Counter-example: icons used in the navigation, status, or action roles.

In the icon picker's vocabulary, the category role is the identity icon (what a thing is); navigation, status, and action are interface icons.

### Action — what does this do?

Icons that help people grasp "here is a choice" and set expectations for where it leads. Though less tightly governed by convention than navigation and status, it is still more constrained than category. Icons from the other roles can be action icons when the action is tied to the icon's meaning in the same service — three horizontal lines for a menu, an empty or filled checkbox, a plus or minus, a chevron to open or close. Counter-example: an aeroplane as a symbol for "send" (though a paper plane is established).

### Illustration

We also use icons to enrich a poster or presentation visually. There they can be modified, filled with images, or used as they are.

---

## Four contexts

It is the context that decides the rules, not the medium or the audience in itself. The consequence of a mistake within a context shapes how strict the rules are — so a patient brochure built in PowerPoint belongs to the patient-facing context, not to presentations.

The model is built on a principle: add friction where mistakes are expensive, stay permissive where they are cheap. The table is a guiding calibration, not a rulebook.

| | Patient-facing | Internal digital tools | Presentations & internal material | Signage & wayfinding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Examples** | aleris.se, MyAleris, patient guides, brochures, letters — digital and print | Qlik dashboards, admin tools, internal systems | Workshop decks, internal documents, working material | Signs and orientation in facilities |
| **Style** | Outline, one weight; status markers solid | Outline preferred | Outline, solid and duotone allowed | Convention-led |
| **Role** | Functional only (navigation, status, category, action) | Functional | Functional + illustrative/decorative | Navigation only |
| **Cost of a mistake** | Trust, accessibility, comprehension — expensive | Internal, correctable — moderate | Low | Orientation and safety — highest |

### Exceptions in internal tools — two kinds of breach

In internal tools two kinds of icon are out:

- **Floor breaches** — logos, weapons, religious symbols. These follow from the floor and apply in every context.
- **Function breaches** — number icons. In a dashboard they compete with actual data and risk becoming the sole carrier of meaning; in a presentation they are unproblematic.

### Duotone in presentations and internal material

Duotone is bound to two petrol steps — never arbitrary pairs, never across colour families. Default pair: **petrol-500 + petrol-100**.

---

## What we never use

A short list is out in every context, however permissive: weapons, logos and trademarks, religious symbols, and anything aggressive or alarmist. These don't belong to the Present Expert anywhere — it isn't that the setting is wrong, it's that the motif itself is off.

Beyond that floor, fit is a matter of context, not a separate test. Whether an icon's expression suits the moment — a playful icon that's right in a workshop deck and wrong on a patient page, the same icon — is decided by the context it sits in. The four contexts set how much expressive latitude you have; that's where fit is judged.

---

## Constant and contextual

### Constant — what always applies

- **One consistent style.** One source family (Font Awesome Pro), and within any single product one weight — never outline, solid and duotone mixed on the same surface. This consistency is what makes icons cohere as Aleris. Status markers are the one exception: they are solid, because a filled state marker is the convention readers already know.
- **The floor:** weapons, logos, religious symbols, aggressive or alarmist motifs — never, in any context.
- An icon that carries a specific meaning always appears with a label (decorative icons in the presentation context excepted).
- Colour from the palette only — icons never introduce their own.

### Contextual — what adapts per context

- **Style:** which styles are permitted — outline, solid, duotone — widens or narrows by context.
- **Role:** functional or illustrative.
- **Governance:** the floor alone in three contexts, and an external wayfinding standard in the fourth (established practice for evacuation, accessibility, direction, ISO 7001).

---

## Governance per context

**Any Font Awesome Pro icon may be used, except the motifs under "What we never use".** There is no list to choose from. A reviewed list has to be kept current as needs change, and without a service doing that work it goes stale and slows people down more than it protects them. The floor is short enough to keep in mind and to check.

What differs between contexts is how an icon is used, not which one is chosen: the style and the role in the table above, the label rule, and in internal tools the function breach — number icons compete with the data in a dashboard.

**Signage and wayfinding** is governed differently. Here Aleris follows established wayfinding standards (ISO 7001, ISO 7010, accessibility symbols) that it does not own, and the selection is defined together with the Physical chapter.

That a tool has given an icon a local meaning — an app icon in Qlik, say — creates no rule outside that tool.

The floor in machine-readable form is `data-products/iconography/blocklist.json`, a short list of Font Awesome icon names that the site build and a check in this repo refuse.

---

## What our icons are not

- Our icons do not use colours outside our palette.
- Our icons are not used decoratively in digital interfaces; a decorative icon must clearly be part of content or background graphics.

*(The "aggressive or alarmist" exclusion that used to sit here now lives in the floor — kept in one place to avoid stating it three times. Confirm on your pass.)*

---

## Quick test

Before you place an icon:

1. **Which context are you in?** Audience and situation decide which icons may be used.
2. **Does the icon clear the floor, and does its expression fit this context?**
3. **Does the icon mean something specific?** Then the recipient needs to understand exactly what you mean — does it have a label?

---

*Consistently using icons from the same family is important for a visually coherent identity. Holding a clear distinction between functional and aesthetic use of icons is crucial to clear communication. This is not a matter of taste or preference, but foundational to being a professional and trustworthy business. It's part of our signature.*


<!-- source: data-products/iconography/blocklist.json · status: none -->

```json
{
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "updated": "2026-09-26",
  "note": "The floor of principles/iconography.md § What we never use, as Font Awesome icon names: weapons, logos and trademarks, religious symbols, anything aggressive or alarmist. There is no allowlist (Torfinn, 2026-09-26): any icon in the Font Awesome Pro kit may be used except the names below. Every icon in the Font Awesome categories named in source_categories is on the list unless it is in allowed; the rest are chosen by name. Logos and trademarks are excluded by construction: they live in Font Awesome's Brands family, which the vendored set (public/icon-picker/svgs/regular, classic Regular) does not contain. Warning and status icons such as triangle-exclamation, siren and virus are not on the list, because a warning that informs is not an alarmist motif. Kitchen knives, utensils, scalpels, axes and pickaxes as tools, and bullet-list icons are deliberately absent. Names in allowed were reviewed and are NOT blocked: each has a legitimate use, and Torfinn allowed them on 2026-09-26. He blocked radiation, circle-radiation and biohazard in the same ruling. Drafted by Claude from public/icon-picker/metadata/icons.json and passed by Torfinn on 2026-09-26; enforced by data-products/iconography/blocklist.test.ts.",
  "source_categories": [
    "religion"
  ],
  "names": [
    {
      "name": "ankh",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "aquarius",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "aries",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "bahai",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "book-bible",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "book-journal-whills",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "book-quran",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "book-tanakh",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "cancer",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "capricorn",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "church",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "dharmachakra",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "gemini",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "gopuram",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "hamsa",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "hanukiah",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "jedi",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "kaaba",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "khanda",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "leo",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "libra",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "menorah",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "mosque",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "om",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-praying",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "pisces",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "place-of-worship",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "sagittarius",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "scorpio",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "scroll-torah",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "spaghetti-monster-flying",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "star-and-crescent",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "star-of-david",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "synagogue",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "taurus",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "torii-gate",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "user-beard-bolt",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "vihara",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "virgo",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "yin-yang",
      "reason": "religion"
    },
    {
      "name": "gun",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "gun-slash",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "raygun",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-rifle",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-military-rifle",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "child-combatant",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "bomb",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "land-mine-on",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "cannon",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "jet-fighter",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "jet-fighter-up",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "sword",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "swords",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "sword-laser",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "sword-laser-alt",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "swords-laser",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "dagger",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "axe-battle",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "hammer-war",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "mace",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "sickle",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "scythe",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "bow-arrow",
      "reason": "weapon"
    },
    {
      "name": "hand-fist",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "hand-back-fist",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "hand-middle-finger",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-angry",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-angry-horns",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-pouting",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-nose-steam",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-swear",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "claw-marks",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-harassing",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "helmet-battle",
      "reason": "aggressive"
    },
    {
      "name": "skull-crossbones",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "explosion",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-burst",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-dress-burst",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "person-falling-burst",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-scream",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "face-explode",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "dumpster-fire",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "coffin",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "hand-holding-skull",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "book-skull",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "skull-cow",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "flask-round-poison",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "tombstone",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "tombstone-blank",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "coffin-cross",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "radiation",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "circle-radiation",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    },
    {
      "name": "biohazard",
      "reason": "alarmist"
    }
  ],
  "allowed": [
    {
      "name": "skull",
      "why": "A plain anatomical skull, plausible for head, dental or neurology content; it also reads as death."
    },
    {
      "name": "cross",
      "why": "In Font Awesome's religion category and drawn as a Latin cross, while a plus-shaped cross is the common medical sign."
    },
    {
      "name": "star-of-life",
      "why": "An emergency-medical symbol, not a religious one; in the US it is a registered certification mark, which touches the trademark floor."
    },
    {
      "name": "atom",
      "why": "In Font Awesome's religion category (as the atheism symbol), but reads as science, research or physics."
    },
    {
      "name": "dove",
      "why": "In Font Awesome's religion category, but reads as peace or a bird as often as the Holy Spirit."
    },
    {
      "name": "peace",
      "why": "In Font Awesome's religion category; the peace sign is political more than religious."
    },
    {
      "name": "hands-praying",
      "why": "In Font Awesome's religion category, but the same gesture means thank you or please in everyday use."
    },
    {
      "name": "person-military-pointing",
      "why": "A soldier with no weapon drawn: military, but not a weapon by motif."
    },
    {
      "name": "person-military-to-person",
      "why": "A soldier with a civilian and no weapon drawn: a humanitarian scene, not violence."
    },
    {
      "name": "handcuffs",
      "why": "Coercive, but security and compulsory-care contexts may need to name restraint plainly."
    },
    {
      "name": "gun-squirt",
      "why": "A water pistol: a toy, but the silhouette is a gun."
    },
    {
      "name": "bow-archery",
      "why": "Archery as a sport rather than a weapon."
    },
    {
      "name": "arrow-archery",
      "why": "An arrow in a target: sport, or hitting a goal, not violence."
    }
  ]
}

```