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The Noun Project, despite its name, is a company that tries hard to make money without words. Founded in 2011 via a Kickstarter campaign, The Noun Project has built a unique niche for itself: creating, capturing and selling licenses for the world’s symbols.
A platform for symbols of all types, from practical workplace pictograms to silly icons, The Noun Project is dedicated to building a visual language that can be understood across cultures. “The audience applies to anyone that needs to visually communicate,” said Sofya Polyakov, co-founder and CEO.
Image downloads are free so long as the creator is properly attributed. If a user wants to use an image without attribution they must sign up for a premium account or purchase an icon individually.
“What you are paying for on our site is being able to use the symbol without having to attribute the designer,” said Polyakov. The designers who created the symbols downloaded for use without attribution get a cut of the revenue from the premium accounts.
Ideal for advertising, marketing and design professionals The Noun Project initially just offered images in black and white, because it was easier for users to add or re-colors to images. They however recently been expanding the platform’s color pallet due to interest from unexpected areas.
“When we first started the site we thought it would be most helpful for the design community,“ said Polyakov. “But then we started hearing from people with children with autism. And children with autism often communicate better with symbols. Our icons turned out to be perfect for that.”
Since then Polyakov said they’ve found use cases far and beyond the design community. Teachers use their symbols in English as a second language classes, doctors use them to communicate to patients and recently the company is working with FEMA to help them better communicate with people in disaster situations.
The Noun Project platform also works as a space for artist collaboration. Designers can upload their symbols into ‘Collaborative Collections’ based around themes directed by a certain user. So-called ‘Directors’ of these collections often give detailed explanations to what the group is about and how to create icons that fit its theme.
Additionally, to further collaboration, The Noun Project has been pioneering so-called ‘Iconathons,’ hackathons focused on creating new icons. They have collaborated on Iconathons with Mother Jones to help communicate the importance of sustainable farming, and The New York Times to help visualize information and data in the news.
Ever dedicated to freeing the world of words, last December The Noun Project launched an API, so that web applications could source the platforms huge library of symbols for better communication. Adobe Voice, a story telling platform, now uses the API to find symbols and Squarespace uses the service to help small companies create their own logos.
The Noun Project’s API and vast library of symbols may open up new possibilities for communicating without words, in particular in messaging apps. “I’d like to see pictograms suggested based on text, being able to communicate freely without having to spend a lot of time looking for something. If you think of Apple opening their keyboard to third party integration I think that could be the platform for that,” said Polyakov.
