New for Friends: Celebrate Medium’s history with custom app icons

TL;DR: Sometimes, making little changes are the best parts of our jobs.

What do you see most each day? Since it’s 2024 and we all have supercomputers in our pockets, my phone screen is at the top of my list — and probably yours, too. We can discuss whether that’s a good thing, a bad thing, or somewhere in between, but shouldn’t we at least make the time we spend staring at these screens more worthwhile?

So, in honor of bringing more delight to your screentime, we’re giving Friends of Medium a set of ten unique icon designs to choose from to add some flair to their home screens.

A fresh batch of icons, available now for Friends of Medium.

On the settings page on our Android and iOS apps, Friends will now see a set icons to choose from. There are a few contemporary options: our current logo in opposing colors, our wordmark, and the Friend icon. You’ll see some “throwback” picks, which revive logos from previous eras of Medium. And there are some that play into the dynamism of writing: a postage stamp, a hand drawn sketch of our current logo, and a classic publisher’s mark.

This selection that spans our history as a company was the product of spirited behind-the-scenes discussions. For many of us, our phone is our most trusted sidekick and assistant — when you’re changing someone’s phone screen, they care. An icon can be functional or creative. It can nod at history, or nudge us towards the future. When customizable, it’s personal. Changing something as small as an app icon can convey so much in mere pixels, we wanted to have some fun with it.

Jason Combs, our brand designer (and a music connoisseur), started with a blank canvas and crafted tons of options for us to weigh in on. Through lots of deliberation, the team narrowed them down to our favorite set. We love where we landed with these options and we hope you’ll also enjoy taking a second to choose your favorite.

These are some of the opinions from Medium Staff — what’s yours?

With that in mind, Friends, which one are you going to choose? And what makes the perfect app icon for you? Let us know in the responses so we can factor it into our next icon drop 👀.

How to change your icon

First, make sure you are a Friend of Medium with the Android or iOS app installed.

iOS / Apple users:

1. Open the Medium app, click your profile picture in the bottom right corner, then the gear icon on the top right to navigate to your settings.
2. Click “Custom app icon” under “Configure Medium”.
3. Select an icon and the change will be applied automatically.

Android users:

1. Open the Medium app, click your profile picture in the bottom right corner, then the gear icon on the top right to navigate to your settings.
2. Click “Custom app icon” under “Configure Medium”.
3. Select an icon, then click “Close app” to restart the app and apply the icon change.