What it does
Academicons is a free icon font for academic websites and publishing. It covers services such as ORCID, arXiv and Google Scholar, with web and desktop fonts and links to LaTeX and Quarto integrations. The font uses SIL OFL 1.1, while its stylesheets use MIT.
Academicons was designed to supplement Font Awesome 5 and shares its font metrics, but it can also be used independently. Each symbol has a square variant for layouts that use square service buttons.
For a website, place the supplied fonts and css folders on your server and load academicons.min.css, or use the documented jsDelivr link pinned to the 1.x release range. The class ai-google-scholar-square selects Google Scholar’s square symbol; ai-3x changes its displayed size.
Install the font files locally to use them in publishing software. The SVG font can also be imported into a font-building application to keep only selected symbols. Scientific-document users have separate LaTeX and Quarto integrations linked from the site.
Academic names and logos remain their owners’ marks. Their inclusion in the font does not imply endorsement, and the licence for the font is distinct from the stylesheet licence.
Strengths
- Includes specialist academic identities absent from many general icon fonts.
- Documents self-hosted, CDN, desktop, LaTeX and Quarto routes.
Watch out for
- Service names and logos retain their owners’ rights.
Best for
- Researchers building publication and profile pages
- Academic publishers adding service symbols to documents
Sources
- Academicons installation, publishing and licences (Oct 27, 2026)