--- title: The monochromatic makeover description: We have given our monochromatic icons a small facelift to make them more elegant, lighter and consistent across the platform by incorporating our Suru language and font style. The rationale behind the new designs are similar to that of our old guidelines, where we have kept to our recurring font patterns but made them more […] url: https://canonical.com/blog/the-monochromatic-makeover?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Canonical](https://canonical.com/blog/author/canonical "More about Canonical") 16 July 2015 # The monochromatic makeover [Design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/design) [icons](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/icons) [Ubuntu Fonts](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/ubuntu-fonts) --- Share the article We have given our monochromatic icons a small facelift to make them more elegant, lighter and consistent across the platform by incorporating our Suru language and font style. The rationale behind the new designs are similar to that of our old guidelines, where we have kept to our recurring font patterns but made them more streamlined and legible with lighter strokes, negative spaces, and a minimal solid shape. ## What we have changed: * Reduced and standardized the strokes width from 6 or 8 pixels to 4. * Less solid shapes and more outlines. * The curvature radius of rectangles and squares has been slightly reduced (e.g message icon) to make them less ‘clumsy’. * Few outlines are ‘broken’ (e.g bookmark, slideshow, contact, copy, paste, delete) for more personality. This negative space can also represent a shadow cast. **Less solid shapes** Before After **Lighter strokes** Before After **Negative spaces** Before After **Font patterns** Oblique lines are slightly curved Arcs are not perfectly rounded but rather curved Uppercase letters use right or sharp angles Vertical lines have oblique upper terminations. Nice soft curves **Action** **Devices** **Indicators** **Weather** [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### Challenges designers face in open source (and how to fix them)](https://canonical.com/blog/challenges-designers-face-in-open-source-and-how-to-fix-them) Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core... [Kola Ojoodide](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kola-ojoodide) 26 June 2026 [### Why web engineering is great](https://canonical.com/blog/why-web-engineering-is-great) Hi, I’m Johann! I’m an engineering manager in Canonical’s web team. For the larger part of my 15 years of work experience as engineer, I’ve been working in web development.... [Johann Wolf](https://canonical.com/blog/author/johannwolf) 27 April 2026 [### Canonical’s recipe for High Performance Computing](https://canonical.com/blog/canonicals-recipe-for-high-performance-computing) In essence, High Performance Computing (HPC) is quite simple. Speed and scale. In practice, the concept is quite complex and hard to achieve. It is not dissimilar to what... [Igor Ljubuncic](https://canonical.com/blog/author/igorljubuncic) 24 January 2024 [### Web team – hack week 2023](https://canonical.com/blog/web-team-hack-week-2023) Today, around 96% of software projects utilize open source in some way. The web team here at Canonical is passionate about Open source. We lead with an open-by-default approach... [Anthony Dillon](https://canonical.com/blog/author/ya-bo-ng) 25 October 2023