How Do Designers Create A Minimalist Books Icon For Apps?

I got annoyed by that little book-like icon too, so I dug in and fixed it — here’s the clean, dependable way that worked for me. First, try the simplest route: right-click (or Control-click on a Mac) directly on the bookmarks bar itself. In the context menu you should see a toggle labeled 'Show reading list' — uncheck that and the books icon (the Reading List button) disappears instantly. If you like screenshots and fiddling, this is the one-click fix that saved me from poking through settings. If that option isn’t visible for you, don’t panic; Chrome changes things from time to time. Paste chrome://flags/#read-later into your address bar, hit Enter, and disable the flag called something like 'Reading List' or 'Read Later'. Relaunch Chrome and the icon should be gone. A final fallback is to check chrome://extensions for any extension that might be adding toolbar buttons, or create a fresh profile if your profile has quirky policies. I ran into that once after an update and disabling the flag fixed it immediately. Little tip: if you ever want it back, reverse the steps — re-enable the flag or toggle 'Show reading list' on. Also, on mobile Chrome the UI is different and that desktop bookshelf icon doesn’t apply. Hope that helps — I love having the bar tidy, so this felt like reclaiming desk space on my browser.

When I tap that tiny books icon on a Goodreads profile, I usually take it as a quick doorway into someone’s reading life. For me it’s not mysterious — it links to the person’s bookshelves and reading activity: the books they’ve marked as 'read', 'currently-reading', 'to-read', plus any custom shelves they’ve created. It’s basically a compact way to see what they’ve been into lately and whether we have overlapping tastes. If you click through you’ll often see counts (how many books are on each shelf), the covers, and sometimes recent updates like reviews or ratings. Keep in mind people can set shelves to private, so the icon may not reveal everything. On mobile the same icon sometimes lives in a different spot or opens a menu, but the idea’s the same — a shortcut to explore someone’s collections and recommendations. I use that icon all the time to find companions for a read or to snoop for new titles when I’m out of book ideas. Pro tip: if you find someone whose shelves you like, follow them or check which of their reviews they’ve left for titles you’re curious about — it’s a nice way to peek behind the bookshelf and maybe discover a hidden gem.

I just finished 'Icon' last week, and yes, it absolutely has a romantic subplot that sneaks up on you. It starts with professional tension between the protagonist and a rival journalist, but slowly evolves into this electric chemistry. Their debates turn into late-night coffee sessions, then stolen glances during press conferences. What I loved is how their relationship mirrors the book's themes of truth and deception - they keep secrets professionally and personally, which creates this delicious push-pull dynamic. The romance isn't the main focus, but it adds serious emotional stakes when their careers and hearts collide during the final investigation.

Whenever I catch that little silhouette of an open book on a website or an app, my brain goes on a tiny historical detour — it's surprisingly old-fashioned beneath its modern smooth lines. The motif of an open book actually goes back to medieval art and manuscripts, where evangelists and scholars were frequently depicted holding open codices; those images signaled authority and learning. Fast-forward a few centuries and you get the printers' devices and colophons of the early presses — think the dolphin and anchor of the Aldine Press — little brand marks that functioned much like today's icons, showing origin and trustworthiness. By the 19th and early 20th centuries, bookbinders, booksellers and librarians turned to standard visual cues: stacks, spines, open pages and ex libris bookplates. Those physical signs bled into public signage and cataloging symbols, so when designers in the mid-20th century started reducing things to pictograms — through movements like ISOTYPE and the Swiss style — the book symbol got smoothed into the pared-down glyphs we recognize now. Digital interfaces accelerated that simplification. From early GUIs to skeuomorphic apps like 'iBooks' and then to flat icon systems, the book icon needed to be legible at tiny sizes, so designers kept the essential geometry: two covers and a line (or two) of pages. Even the Unicode open-book emoji U+1F4D6 is part of that lineage. If you like little visual histories, try hunting printer marks or 'Gutenberg Bible' facsimiles online — it's like tracing a family tree for a tiny, ubiquitous symbol.

My phone started doing that once after an iOS update and it freaked me out for a minute, so you're not alone — seeing a little 'Books' icon in Screen Time can be confusing. Basically, Screen Time groups usage by app or by category, and the 'Books' icon often shows up when the system is tracking time spent in 'Apple Books' or anything iOS considers part of the Reading category. That can include reading ePubs or PDFs in 'Books', audiobooks played through 'Books', or even content opened by other apps that the system lumps into Reading & Reference. If you want to poke around, go to Settings > Screen Time > See All Activity, pick Day or Week, then scroll to the 'Most Used' section. Tap the 'Books' entry to see whether it's actually 'Books' the app, an audiobook session, or a miscategorized third-party reader like 'Kindle'. A few times I've seen a web article count as reading and get grouped under the same icon. If the icon is there because of synced activity across devices, try toggling Share Across Devices (Settings > Screen Time) — that separated my iPad reading stats from my iPhone. To remove it, you can either delete or offload the app producing the entries, set an App Limit for 'Books', or temporarily turn off Screen Time. If the icon belongs to a third-party app and it looks miscategorized, sometimes the only fix is waiting for the app developer or an iOS patch to correct the category. I found it helpful to check the detailed activity first — it usually tells you what exactly is being tracked, and that clue makes the fix painless.

Late nights with a sketchbook and a half-drunk cup of coffee taught me that a small books icon can carry a surprisingly heavy load for a brand. Think of the icon as a compact story: shape, line weight, and negative space tell people what to expect before they read a single sentence. I try to keep a simple rule when I design or suggest icons—clarity at tiny sizes. Make a version that reads well at 16x16 pixels for favicons, a stacked square for profile avatars, and a wider version for headers. Use consistent corner radius and stroke thickness so it feels like one family across contexts. Beyond legibility, treat the icon as a mood anchor. Pair it with a two-color palette and a typeface duo so every social post or newsletter screams the same vibe. I’ve seen authors turn a little open-book silhouette into merch, social stickers, animated GIFs for stories, and even a tiny loading animation on their site—these touchpoints multiply recognition. Don’t forget to create a short brand guideline: correct spacing, minimum sizes, acceptable background treatments. I usually scribble these on a napkin during meetings and later formalize them into a one-page sheet that’s actually usable. Finally, use subtle storytelling hooks: a bookmark tab, a quill, a page curl, or a tiny motif unique to the author’s work. If your books are cozy mysteries, a teacup + book combo can become a shorthand; for high fantasy, a rune-like mark in the spine works wonders. Test a few variations with your followers—simple A/B polls or story stickers—and watch which one people start using in fan art. That’s when you know the icon stopped being a logo and became a little flag for your world.

I was halfway through a commute and scrolling through my home screen when I noticed the little book icon had changed—funny how tiny details grab you. On my Pixel it looked cleaner, flatter, and more in line with those rounded, adaptive shapes Google has been pushing. My gut reaction was: this is part design trend, part technical housekeeping. Google tends to roll out icon tweaks as part of broader design updates like Material You, and those updates force apps to adopt adaptive outlines, dynamic color schemes, and simplified silhouettes so icons read clearly at small sizes and in different themes like dark mode. Beyond aesthetics, there are other practical reasons. Icons get changed to improve recognizability across regions, reduce visual clutter, or align with a brand refresh—sometimes the app name shifts too, like how 'Google Play Books' has been nudged toward a more unified Play ecosystem look. Companies also A/B test icons server-side; some users see one version, others see an experiment. I’ve seen threads on forums where folks compared the old bookshelf emblem to a new minimalist bookmark; designers often choose the bookmark because it scales better, prints well on tiny notification chips, and avoids culturally specific imagery. If the new icon bugs you, there are easy workarounds I actually use: try an icon pack or a custom launcher, check the app’s beta channel (sometimes beta keeps the old art), or clear the launcher cache if it’s a visual glitch. You can always send feedback through the app’s settings—design teams do read that stuff, especially when a lot of people mention it. Personally I miss the old bookshelf when I open 'Google Play Books' to read manga like 'One Piece', but the cleaner icon does look nicer alongside my other apps when Material You recolors everything to match my wallpaper.

When I redesigned the blog section for my little book-review corner, I went down a rabbit hole hunting for a crisp, high-res books icon that would look great in the header and as a favicon. My go-to rule: pick vector formats (SVG) whenever possible — they stay sharp at any resolution and are super easy to recolor to match your theme. For sources, I regularly use Flaticon and The Noun Project for fast variety (both offer free icons if you credit the creator, or paid plans for licensing without attribution). I also love Icons8 and Font Awesome for ready-to-use sets; Font Awesome is great if you want an icon font or consistent sizing across your site. If you want truly scalable, editable files, search for 'book svg' or 'open book icon svg' on Vecteezy and Freepik; they often include layered AI or EPS files so you can tweak details in Illustrator or Figma. For completely free and permissive options, check out Material Design Icons, Feather Icons, or Heroicons — they’re open-source and easy to drop into a modern site. For stock-photo-style, high-res PNGs, Adobe Stock and Shutterstock have polished options if you’re willing to pay. A couple of practical tips I learned the hard way: convert SVG to PNG at multiple sizes (favicon needs 16×16/32×32, site thumbnails often need 512×512) or use an online generator; optimize SVGs with SVGO or svgomg to cut file size; and always double-check the license (commercial vs. attribution). If you want to personalize, open the SVG in Figma or Inkscape and change stroke weight, color, or add a tiny bookmark icon — it’s a small tweak that makes the icon feel like your own. After that, it’s just a matter of matching colors and padding so it sings with your layout.