If you build training, you probably use icons in your work. How many times have you needed an icon to represent a concept in your training but struggled to find an image in a stock library? How many times have you been using an icon set in a particular style and then realized you were missing something specific you needed? AI image generation can help solve the problems of both representing very specific needs and consistent visual style. In this post, I’ll show a few different ways you can generate icon sets with AI. This includes tips for generating ideas and for working with different tools (Midjourney, Nano Banana, ChatGPT, and Brushless).
Generate ideas for icon set images
One of the first challenges in generating icon sets is figuring out how to represent abstract concepts with a concrete or symbolic image. When you search for icons in a stock library, they’ll usually be tagged with the conceptual words. But when you generate AI images, you often need to describe the image you want. Sometimes you can just ask for a representation of a concept (and it’s worth experimenting to see what happens and generate more ideas), but most of the time I find I get better results if I describe the image in more detail.
For this blog post, I’m going to use concepts that would be tricky to find in any stock image library. These are Bandura’s four factors that support self-efficacy. (If you’re not familiar with Bandura’s research, here’s a quick overview of self-efficacy and the four sources.)
Mastery experiences: Direct experiences of success at a task.Vicarious experiences: Seeing others, especially people similar to you, succeed through effort.Social persuasion: Feedback, encouragement, and persuasion from others (teachers, coaches, parents, peers).Physiological and emotional cues: How you interpret your physical and emotional reactions—stress, anxiety, fatigue, excitement.
Here’s what ChatGPT gave me for ideas for visually representing mastery experiences.
Mountain with a flag at the summitPerson standing at the top, small path or steps leading up the mountain.Symbolizes successfully overcoming a challenge.Target with an arrow hitting the centerClean bullseye, one arrow in the middle.Represents achieving a specific goal through effort.Checklist with all items tickedSimple list with check marks.Conveys a series of completed tasks and accumulating successes.
You can even use ChatGPT or another LLM to draft an image prompt for you based on a specific idea. (More on that later.)
Midjourney: Generate icons one at a time
In Midjourney, you need to generate icons one at a time. However, you can get consistent visual styles, including a wider range of styles than in some other tools. Here, I used a hand-drawn marker style.
Hand drawn line icon, marker, thick marker strokes, a person climbing a mountain with a flag at the summit, navy blue with light blue and orange accents, white background
For this set, I generated draft images the first icon using the prompt above. After selecting the best draft and enhancing it, I used that single image as the style reference for the remaining images. This is the simplest and fastest method of getting a consistent style in Midjourney.
If I wanted to refine the style and colors more, I could use some of Midjourney’s other features (especially the new feature to create your own style). There are some inconsistencies in the line style in the icons above that I’d probably want to adjust if this was for an actual project and not just a blog example.
You can also explore existing styles in Midjourney and generate icons with styles shared by others. Here’s a set of icons using sref (style reference) code 1184100247. This gives it a completely different look, even though the overall concepts for the images are the same.
Nano Banana and ChatGPT: Generate a grid of icons
In Nano Banana Pro and ChatGPT, you can generate a grid of multiple icons. Generating all of the images at once in a single large image and then splitting them into separate images is the fastest way to generate the icons and maintain a consistent style.
I asked ChatGPT to write an image prompt for a grid of icons using a modern line icon style and navy blue with orange accents. Here’s the prompt it generated.
Create a 2×2 grid of modern line icons on a white background, using navy blue as the primary line color and orange accents for highlights. Clean, minimal, and consistent line weight, with rounded corners and no shading or gradients.
Top-left icon: Mastery ExperiencesA simple human figure climbing a mountain, with a clear path or steps suggested by the lines. At the summit, draw a small flag outlined in navy blue with an orange flag fill or accent. The figure and mountain lines are navy; use orange for small highlight details (e.g., flag, path markers).Top-right icon: Vicarious ExperiencesA group of 3–4 human figures in simple, rounded outline style. One figure is clearly highlighted using orange accents (e.g., orange outline or orange halo behind it), while the others are in navy outlines only. The highlighted figure should be slightly forward or centered to emphasize modeling and being a role model.Bottom-left icon: Social PersuasionA megaphone in navy blue outline, angled slightly upward. Emanating from the megaphone, include a simple heart shape outlined in navy, with orange fill or accent to show warmth and encouragement. You can add 1–2 short navy “sound lines” near the megaphone opening to suggest speaking, but keep it minimal.Bottom-right icon: Physiological & Affective StatesA simple human upper-body figure in navy outline, facing forward or in profile. Around the chest or face area, draw gentle wavy lines (navy outline with subtle orange accents) to represent calm breathing and regulated emotional state. The overall expression and posture should suggest relaxation and balance (e.g., neutral or slightly uplifted head).
All four icons should:
Share the same line weight, corner radius, and visual style.Be centered in their quadrants with equal spacing.Use only navy blue and orange on a pure white background.No text, no drop shadows, no gradients, no 3D effects.
Nano Banana and ChatGPT generated fairly similar icon sets with this prompt.
Nano Banana icon set
I like the modern line icon style in Nano Banana; this looks very professional and like something I could immediately drop into slides to explain these concepts.
ChatGPT icon set
ChatGPT’s icon set turned out pretty good too. Stylistically, I think I prefer the Nano Banana icons, especially the one with the calm breathing, but these would certainly be usable too. ChatGPT also included labels for each icon. I’d probably remove that text for most purposes so I could maintain a consistent font with other content. That’s an easy edit though.
Brushless: Generate vector icons with styles and color palettes
Brushless isn’t as well-known of an AI image generation tool, but it has some great features that make it a solid choice for generating icon sets.
Vector images: First, you can generate actual vector images. SVG files are easier to tweak and revise in other programs if you want to make more detailed edits. (If you just want to adjust colors for different elements, you can edit that right in Brushless.)Colors: Second, Brushless lets you upload your own color palette to use for images, making brand consistency easier.Styles: Finally, the built-in style library has several choices that can be used for icons.
I used the origami style for this icon set, but you can generate line icons, flat icons, or other styles too. I had previously uploaded my branding colors, so I just selected that from my options. You can generate color schemes or use suggested ones in the app too.
Icon sets with AI
Generating icon sets with consistent colors and styles is one of those actual problems that AI can help address right now. Is this a revolutionary change that will upend the whole L&D field? No, of course not! But it is something that is useful right now, with the current tools, with very little risk or cost. These are the sorts of practical uses for AI that I expect to hear a lot about from others in L&D this year.
Further reading
Check out my post Generating Visual Metaphors to Support Learning for more tips on generating symbolic images like icons.
