In the freely accessible database of Google Fonts, there are several thousand fonts that can be used by all users free of charge – including symbol fonts. Google has now announced the launch of the Material Symbols, which will be provided in a surprisingly highly customizable form. This is a large collection of standard symbols that are needed again and again.
Many years ago, Google released the Material Icons, which can be integrated as a separate font and offer numerous symbols for use on websites or apps. With the material symbols, you now take the next step, which at first glance looks very similar, but offers a number of advantages. On the one hand, the significantly larger selection of symbols, because this should be over 2500.
The symbols can not only be integrated into their standard display but can also be adapted in advance. The line thickness can be set in a very fine scale, the filling of the individual elements can be optionally switched on and the size and position can be set compared to the rest of the font. In the animation above you can see the effects of the available sliders.
With these customization options as well as the more than two and a half thousand symbols, there should be something for everyone. Many symbols should look familiar to Google users, because the company has been using them in its own applications for many years. In addition, there is the possibility to display the icons normally, slightly rounded or with sharp edges. The graphic above shows you in this order, but the differences are difficult to see. Maybe pay attention to the shopping cart.
As usual, the material symbols are available free of charge and can be easily integrated via the Google Fonts portal. These can either be integrated directly or downloaded and applied themselves, which is up to each user or developer or designer for their own approach.