Icons and illustrations for a website: order custom or use ready-made
An icon is the smallest interface element, but its size makes mistakes in it especially noticeable — an illegible symbol confuses a user faster than a poorly chosen button colour.
When a ready-made library is enough
For standard functional icons — search, cart, phone, mail — ready-made libraries work great: users already recognise these shapes from dozens of other sites, and recognisability matters more than originality here.
A ready library saves time and budget wherever an icon plays a purely functional role and carries no brand weight. Trying to invent a non-standard shape for a 'search' icon risks users simply not recognising it.
When custom design is needed
Icons representing a company's unique services or products are worth commissioning custom — a ready library either lacks that exact meaning or offers a generic symbol that doesn't reflect the specifics of this particular business.
Illustrations for key sections of a site — how a product works, what a service includes — outperform stock photos and stock icons because they can show exactly what needs explaining, rather than an approximately similar stock image.
Consistency with the identity
All icons on a site should share one visual approach — line weight, corner roundness, fill or outline. Mixing libraries with different line weights in the same interface is noticeable even to someone without design experience, even if they can't articulate what's off.
Icon and illustration colour should come from the approved brand palette, not be picked by eye to match a particular page's mood. Otherwise the illustrated section reads as a separate project rather than part of one site.
Technical requirements
Icons should be in vector SVG format — this allows resizing without quality loss and weighs less than raster equivalents, which directly affects page load speed.
Check legibility at the minimum size the icon will actually be used at — 16 or 24 pixels. A detailed icon that looks great zoomed in on a mockup often turns into an illegible smudge in practice.
Cost and timeline
A set of 10–15 custom icons in one consistent style: usually from 1,000,000 UZS, over 3–5 days. A set of illustrations for key site sections costs more and is priced individually depending on complexity and count.
A mixed approach is often optimal: a ready library for standard functional icons plus a handful of custom icons and illustrations for the genuinely important, business-specific sections.