Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Icon Curator

🎯 Role Definition

As our Icon Curator & Design System Specialist, you will be the central owner and subject matter expert for our entire iconography collection. You are a unique blend of a designer, librarian, and strategist, passionate about creating order from chaos. You will be responsible for the governance, quality, and scalability of our icon library, ensuring every icon is beautiful, purposeful, performant, and perfectly aligned with our brand and accessibility standards. You will collaborate cross-functionally with designers, engineers, and product managers to build and maintain a world-class, easy-to-use asset system that empowers teams to build high-quality products faster.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

UI Designer / Visual Designer
Graphic Designer with a focus on digital assets
Digital Asset Manager or Coordinator

Advancement To:

Senior Icon Curator / Lead Iconographer
Design System Manager
Lead Product Designer (Systems)

Lateral Moves:

UI/UX Designer
Brand Identity Designer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of our global icon library, from initial request and conceptualization through design, optimization, and final implementation.
Establish, document, and rigorously enforce quality standards and creation guidelines for all icon assets to ensure consistency in style, weight, and pixel-perfect execution.
Act as the primary gatekeeper for the icon library, reviewing all new submissions and contributions for quality, relevance, and adherence to design system principles.
Design and produce new, high-quality icons in-house or art direct external agencies and freelancers to ensure deliverables meet our precise specifications.
Conduct comprehensive audits of existing icon sets across our web and mobile platforms to identify inconsistencies, redundancies, and opportunities for consolidation.
Meticulously optimize all icon assets, primarily SVGs, for performance, focusing on clean code, minimal file size, and flawless rendering across all supported browsers and devices.
Own and maintain the centralized icon library within our design system tools (e.g., Figma, Storybook, Zeroheight), ensuring it is well-organized, up-to-date, and easily searchable.
Develop and maintain clear documentation for the icon library, including naming conventions, metadata tagging strategies, and detailed usage guidelines for designers and developers.
Serve as the go-to subject matter expert for all icon-related inquiries, providing proactive support and expert guidance to product, design, and engineering teams.
Partner with accessibility specialists to ensure all icons are compliant with WCAG standards, including providing appropriate text alternatives and ensuring sufficient contrast.
Stay current with industry trends and best practices in icon design, SVG technology, and design system management, bringing innovative ideas to the team.
Create and manage a transparent workflow for icon requests, feedback, and contributions from the wider organization, fostering a collaborative environment.
Ensure all icons are culturally sensitive and universally understood, collaborating with localization teams to vet metaphors for a global audience.
Manage icon versioning and communicate updates, additions, and deprecations clearly to all stakeholders to prevent the use of outdated assets.
Collaborate directly with front-end engineers to streamline the icon integration pipeline, ensuring a seamless handoff from design to code.
Curate and maintain multiple icon styles (e.g., outline, solid, two-tone) and sizes, ensuring visual harmony and consistency across all variants.

Secondary Functions

Analyze usage data and metrics from the icon library to identify popular and underused assets, generating insights to guide future development and cleanup efforts.
Contribute to the broader design system governance model, helping to define and refine processes for other components, design tokens, and assets.
Collaborate with the Brand team to ensure the icon library consistently reflects the evolution of our company's visual identity and brand strategy.
Participate in design critiques, sprint planning, and team retrospectives, providing expert feedback on the appropriate and consistent use of iconography in new features.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expert-level proficiency in vector design software such as Figma, Adobe Illustrator, and Sketch for creating and refining icons.
A deep, practical understanding of the SVG format, including its code structure, optimization techniques for web performance, and accessibility features.
Proven experience managing assets within a mature Design System and using tools like Figma Libraries, Storybook, or Zeroheight.
Familiarity with Digital Asset Management (DAM) principles and specific icon management software (e.g., Nucleo, IconJar) is highly desirable.
Strong knowledge of web accessibility standards (WCAG) and how they apply to iconography, interactive elements, and visual design.
A foundational understanding of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS) and component-based frameworks (e.g., React, Vue) to better collaborate with engineers.
Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git) for managing design assets is a significant plus.

Soft Skills

Meticulous attention to detail with a passion for organization, classification, and system-building.
A strong visual eye and a deep appreciation for the principles of minimalist, clear, and effective visual communication.
Exceptional collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to articulate design rationale and technical constraints to diverse audiences.
A systematic and proactive approach to problem-solving, capable of managing complex workflows and driving projects independently.
The ability to provide and receive constructive feedback gracefully, fostering a positive and high-quality design culture.
A strong sense of ownership and accountability for the quality and usability of the systems you manage.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

A portfolio demonstrating strong visual design skills and experience in managing complex asset libraries is required, regardless of formal education.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree (BA/BFA) or equivalent practical experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Graphic Design, Communication Design
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
Digital Arts, Media Arts

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3-5+ years of relevant experience in a UI/UX design, visual design, or digital asset management role.

Preferred:

Demonstrable experience specifically creating or managing an icon library for a product-led company.
A portfolio that showcases system-level thinking and pixel-perfect design execution.