Font Awesome's Icon Wizard just got a serious upgrade, and it's now powerful enough to make genuinely great icons (or, per Mike's own admission, genuinely terrible ones, if that's more your speed).

In this episode of Podcast Awesome, host Matt Johnson sits down with Mike, Ed, and Jory (a rare full-team appearance) to talk about the launch of Icon Wizard 2.0. But it's not just a new coat of paint. You can now mix and match icons across styles, layer up to 20 elements at once with full control over size and position, build custom "user" characters by blending heads and bodies, and for the first time run Power Transforms in web fonts, not just SVG.

The crew traces the whole story: how the original Wizard grew out of an internal project once nicknamed F.A.R.Ts (Font Awesome Reusable Tidbits and Shapes, obviously), why this version was almost called the "Icon Genie," and how a customer's offhand feature request turned into a real, shippable icon built live in the tool.

There's also a real-time demo (a thumbs-up icon that grows a seedling), a debate over the correct number of poop-icon swirls, and a very serious 1-to-10 disappointment scale about the road not taken with "Icon F.A.R.Ts." The team is also running an Icon Wizard Contest through September 7, so if you want your creation featured in the gallery, this is your excuse to go play.

🗒️ What We Cover
🧙 What's actually new in Icon Wizard 2.0: mixing icon styles, layering up to 20 elements, add/subtract/stroke operations, and letters and numbers you can punch out of badges
✂️ How Power Transforms — previously an SVG-only capability — now work in web fonts too, and the auto-generated cutouts that made it possible
🧪 The origin story: F.A.R.Ts, the original modifier-only Wizard, and "Snuggles," the team's space for proof-of-concept projects
🎨 Why the team loosened creative control in version 2, and what that trade-off means for good icons (and bad ones)
🖼️ Real community creations from the gallery, including a Starry Night icon, a centaur, a potted cactus, and a live green-thumb demo
🧞 The near-miss name "Icon Genie" and how the team landed back on "Wizard"
🏆 How to enter the Icon Wizard Contest (running through September 7) and where to send feedback during the beta

⏱️ Timestamps
0:00 Cold open: bad icons, good icons, and Jory's grim optimism
1:00 Welcome to the show and episode overview
2:00 The Icon Wizard Contest, explained
4:00 Community favorites: Starry Night, the user blender, and more
5:00 Where this all started: FARTs and the original pitch
7:00 Snuggles and Snactivities, the team's space for proof-of-concept projects
8:00 The real origin story: bringing Power Transforms to web fonts
10:00 What "gooder" actually means in Icon Wizard 2.0
12:00 Ed breaks down what's new: mixing styles, 20 layers, and more
14:00 The real pain point Icon Wizard solves
17:00 Why the Starry Night icon is a different kind of creation
18:00 It's basically a full design tool now
19:00 A customer feature request, solved live with the Wizard
21:00 How v2 actually started: automating the cutouts
23:00 Live demo: building a green thumb icon in real time
26:00 Wizard walkthrough: the four tabs (icons, modifiers, elements, user)
28:00 Add, subtract, stroke: how the Boolean operations work
31:00 Where to send feedback, and how the gallery and sharing work
33:00 Speed round: favorite modifiers
34:00 The secret difference between the poop icon and the poop modifier
35:00 The Icon FARTs disappointment scale
38:00 Almost-names: Icon Genie, Icon Deity, and (sadly, no) Icon Gandalf
40:00 Icon Wizard earns its spot in the main nav
41:00 Wrap-up thoughts on community involvement
43:00 Mike's sign-off

🔗 Links & Resources
Hosted by Matt Johnson
Featuring Mike, Ed, and Jory
Produced and edited by Matt Johnson
Theme song by Ronnie Martin
Music interstitials by Zach Malm
Video editing by Isaac Chase

Icon Wizard: [https://fontawesome.com/icons/wizard]
Gallery + Contest: [https://fontawesome.com/icons/gallery]
Feedback: [feedback@fontawesome.com]
Font Awesome: [https://fontawesome.com]