<p>Nova is a cross between Streamline and Material. The Solid variant provides filled icons combining both design philosophies.</p>

<p>These icons follow our Streamline’s structure and loosely adopt Google Material’s style. With no padding, they appear larger and became the predecessor to our Material Pro set.</p>

Nova

### **one sentence positioning**

Material-like clarity expanded for modern interfaces — concept-appropriate geometry where circles go where things are circular and straight lines go where things are structural.

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### **what it signals**

Modern UI familiarity, efficient clarity, approachable professionalism.

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### **best fit when**

- a recognisable, modern UI language that scales across a complete product is needed
- strong category coverage for real interface ecosystems (toolbars, formatting, controls) is required
- line and solid styles must truly match for hierarchy without geometry shift

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### **avoid when**

- strong illustrative personality or hand-drawn warmth is a brand requirement
- the icon system needs to act as a brand-heavy visual asset rather than functional UI chrome
- visual differentiation away from Google's Material ecosystem is a competitive priority

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### **core visual rules**

- geometry: hybrid concept-appropriate — each icon selects the geometry that correctly represents its subject rather than applying one system universally
- terminals: rounded throughout — consistent with modern UI conventions
- corner language: controlled curves, friendly geometry, concept-driven
- curves: mathematical arcs used only where the concept implies circularity
- detail density: low to medium
- silhouette: compact, readable, fast recognition — optimised for instant identification
- emotional tension: very low — the familiarity reads as calm and immediately trustworthy

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### **variants and hierarchy**

Nova Line

- Lighter footprint; best in dense layouts alongside text labels, toolbars and menus

Nova Solid

- Stronger presence; faster scanning in icon-only contexts, mobile navigation, primary action emphasis

**line/solid pairing rule** Nova Line and Solid are balanced companions — geometry matches across both so switching weight expresses hierarchy without breaking visual consistency. Use Line for inactive states and navigation, Solid for selected states and primary emphasis.

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### **small-size behavior**

- recommended minimum size: 16px
- best range: 16–32px
- notes: The 24px grid with concept-appropriate geometry means Nova has more physical path length per stroke than 14px-grid families at equivalent sizes — it holds dark backgrounds slightly better than Core Line at the same pixel size.

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### **motion behavior**

- strengths: clean scaling, predictable morph paths between Line and Solid states
- ideal motion contexts: navigation state transitions, tab bar selections, loading feedback in productivity tools, toolbar hover interactions

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### **typography pairing**

Interface-native (Material-aligned)

- Inter, SF Pro, Roboto, IBM Plex Sans, Source Sans 3, Atkinson Hyperlegible

Geometric modern sans (more designed)

- Manrope, DM Sans, Space Grotesk, Plus Jakarta Sans, Work Sans, Urbanist

Humanist UI sans (warmer but professional)

- Noto Sans, Segoe UI, Ubuntu, Avenir Next, Myriad Pro

**type alignment rule** Match optical weight between text and icons. Test at real UI sizes (16–24px). Align icons by cap height in navigation. Avoid decorative display fonts and keep tracking moderately tight in dense layouts.

**typefaces to avoid** Decorative display fonts, handwritten scripts, highly humanist serif faces at body size — Nova's Material alignment is best supported by type that shares the same globally-legible professional register.

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### **mixing guidance**

Recommended with

- Ultimate — both are neutral rounded families; separate by product section or component type
- Micro — Nova handles primary UI while Micro handles the density and inline layer

Possible with normalization

- Core — nearly identical visual purpose; normalize by keeping Nova in navigation and Core in secondary controls or density contexts
- Streamline 3.0 — compatible rounded language; isolate to separate product surfaces

Avoid mixing with

- Cyber — the straight-line-only construction is incompatible with Nova's concept-appropriate approach
- Sharp — geometric angular DNA contradicts Nova's hybrid rounded-structural construction
- Freehand — hand-drawn organics conflict with Nova's Material-influenced precision

**normalization rules when mixing**

- keep Nova consistent within navigation and primary toolbar components
- if using another family for illustrations or empty states, keep it entirely outside primary UI controls
- match optical weight when mixing line icons across families in edge cases

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### **primary use cases**

- SaaS dashboards and admin panels
- productivity tools and complex web applications
- mobile applications and design systems
- enterprise software bridging Material Design conventions
- cross-platform products where icon recognition speed is critical
- onboarding flows and feature navigation

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### **secondary use cases**

- developer tools and internal platforms
- any product targeting heavy Google Workspace or Android users

Content

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Notes

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