Styles & Generation

Styles are what keep an icon pack visually consistent. Instead of generating icons one at a time with ad-hoc prompts, you define a style once and generate everything within that visual system.

What a style controls

A style is a saved set of visual parameters that shape how generated icons look:

• Line weight — thin, medium, heavy
• Fill style — outline only, filled, duotone
• Corner treatment — sharp, rounded, fully round
• Color mode — monochrome, limited palette
• Overall aesthetic — minimal, detailed, playful, corporate

The exact parameters depend on the generation model, but the idea is always the same: define the look once, then generate many icons that share it.

Presets vs. custom styles

Icon Forge ships with a set of preset styles — common visual directions like “minimal outline” or “solid fill.” Presets are available to every project and are a good starting point if you’re not sure what direction to go.

You can also create custom styles scoped to a specific project. Custom styles let you dial in exactly the look you want, including uploading reference images to guide the generation model toward a particular feel.

Reference images

When creating or editing a custom style, you can upload reference images — examples of icons that have the look you’re going for.

Reference images are useful for communicating things that are hard to describe in words:

• A specific stroke weight or line treatment
• A particular corner radius or level of detail
• The feel of an existing icon set you want to match
• A mix of thick and thin strokes, or a specific fill pattern

You can add multiple reference images per style and reorder them by priority.

Generating icons

With a style selected:

1. Describe the icons you want — a list of short labels like “home”, “settings”, “envelope”, “calendar”
2. Set how many variants to generate per description (default is 2)
3. Hit generate

Results land in your scratchpad. From there, you pick the best candidates and add them to the pack.

Generate in batches

It’s usually more efficient to generate a batch of related icons at once rather than one at a time. Batches also make it easier to spot consistency issues early — if one icon in a batch looks out of place, you’ll notice immediately.

Iterating on a style

Styles aren’t locked in. You can:

• Tweak generation parameters and regenerate a batch to compare
• Add or swap reference images to steer the output in a different direction
• Create a new style entirely and generate a test batch to see how it compares

Since scratchpad candidates are cheap and disposable, experimenting with styles is low-risk. Generate a test batch, see if the direction works, then commit to it or try something else.

Keeping a pack consistent

The whole reason styles exist is to keep a pack cohesive. If you generate half your icons with a thin outline style and the other half with a bold filled style, the installed pack will look inconsistent in your product.

The simple rule: settle on one primary style early. Generate everything within that style. Only introduce a second style when you have a clear reason (e.g., a “filled” variant set alongside the main “outline” set).