The favicon is the last thing anyone does, and it shows.
Every project ends the same way: a default globe in the browser tab, twenty icons pulled from three different libraries, and a manifest referencing files nobody generated. It is half an hour of work that never has half an hour available.
one mark, every size
72px
48px
32px
24px
16px
Thick strokes and two colours are why it still reads at 16 pixels. That is a prompt decision, not an export setting.
Two different jobs that both get called “icons”
UI icon sets
text_to_svg · style: icon · 5 cr each
Twenty-odd marks that appear next to labels, in buttons and in menus. They need to be vector, they need to share a stroke weight, and they need to survive being rendered at 20 pixels next to 14-pixel text.
“{subject}, single mark, 2px uniform stroke, two colours only, rounded caps, no fill, centred in a 24px square, generous padding”
Vary only {subject}. Generate them in one batch and they will match.
App icon & favicon
text_to_svg → transparent PNG → sizes
One mark, exported into whatever pixel dimensions the platforms insist on. The design constraint is brutal: it has to be recognisable at 16 pixels, which rules out detail, gradients and anything resembling a scene.
“Bold single-shape logomark, one accent colour on dark, high contrast, no text, no fine detail, readable at 16 pixels”
Check the 16px render first. If it works there it works everywhere.
The export list nobody remembers
Generate the master at 1024×1024 as a transparent PNG, then derive everything below it. An agent can do the whole list in one batch and write the manifest to match.
| Size | Format | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| 512 × 512 | PNG | Web manifest, Android install prompt, store listings |
| 192 × 192 | PNG | Web manifest, home-screen shortcut |
| 180 × 180 | PNG | apple-touch-icon |
| 32 × 32 | PNG | Browser tab on standard displays |
| 16 × 16 | PNG | Bookmarks, tab strip at its smallest |
| scalable | SVG | Crisp on any display; the source of truth |
Icon generation questions
Should icons be SVG or PNG?
UI icons should be SVG — one file, any size, recolourable with currentColor, a few hundred bytes. App icons and favicons need PNG at specific pixel sizes because the platforms demand it, so generate the mark as vector and export the raster sizes from it.
How do I get a whole set that looks like a set?
Fix the style constraints in every prompt — stroke weight, colour count, corner radius, whether shapes are filled or outlined — and generate them in one batch. Icons drift when they are made one at a time over weeks, not when they are made together.
What sizes does a favicon actually need?
In practice: a 32×32 and a 16×16 PNG, a 180×180 apple-touch-icon, 192×192 and 512×512 for the web manifest, and an SVG if you want a crisp mark on high-density displays. Generate the artwork once at 1024×1024 and derive the rest.
Can it make a logo, not just an icon?
It can produce a credible logomark, which is genuinely useful for a prototype, an internal tool or a project that needs to look finished this week. A brand identity for a company that will live with it for a decade is a different exercise and worth a human designer.
How much does an icon set cost?
Vector generation is 5 credits per icon, the cheapest creative call on the platform. A twenty-icon UI set is 100 credits; a full favicon and app-icon export from one mark is under 20.