Icon system

Description or user story

Our designer's process started by asking what icons we need. In an early version of planning this site, we were inspired by a now-gone version of the PubPub site that had icons with its feature list. We also tried to imagine what icons we'd need on a promo site for calls to action. Whether premature or not, this resulted in a nice abstract icon set:

More recently Steph and Siobhan rightly pointed out that these icons are too abstract to work well as independent semantic build blocks for functional interfaces. As a result, we may not be able to depend on them, as they are, for more functional interfaces like the end-user docs, or much longer term, Janeway itself. I think Siobhan went so far as to suggest we don't call these icons, because philosophically they are not, and practically it would be confusing to call them icons if we have more functional icons to use.

So, questions arise. What do we do with this set? Do we still want to use them in the JW site interface, as abstract illustrations of text, which remains central for meaning and navigation? Is it OK that they are abstract for a promotional site? Do we think they can also be used functionally, in contexts like docs? Or maybe they can be modified or winnowed down into a functional set? What functional icons do we need, anyway? When in the process should we commission new icons?

Start with the issue description and the attached icon-set image. Resolve whether the existing abstract set should be used, renamed, modified, or replaced, and define which functional icons are needed before implementation begins.