Exploring the icon’s world seems like a never-ending discovery. From distinctive business icons to commercial brand icons, the collection is expanding every day in a blink of an eye. 

But from thousands, if not millions, there are the most-common technology icons you are in touch with daily or every minute. 

5 Category of Most-Used Technology Icons or Symbols and Meaning Behind It

Network, Wireless, and Internet Symbols

• A small dot/tower and expanding wave above it: When you are in public places, and you need to connect your mobile devices to a free public internet connection, you’ll directly go to the menu bar on your device and look up this icon; right?

That tiny dot with an expanding wave above it represents a Wi-Fi signal connection.  

• A House: this icon indicates the main page or area of a browser on your desktop and also the main area of a UI on mobile devices. With a single click on this icon, you will be directed to the main page in a browser or get access to the main UI area of your gadget. 

Hardware Device and Port Symbols

• A dot with a line connected to other shapes like a triangle, another circle, and a square, similar to Neptune’s Trident from Roman mythology: this symbolizes the USB port (version 2.0 and lower). 

The alignment of the primary dot or circle to a triangle, square, and another circle through a line describes different peripherals or surroundings that could be attached to it using the standard. This icon also signifies a USB device, on a desktop, or on any common mobile device. 

• Two bound runes: inspired by Denmark’s King who reunited two Danish tribes, King Harald Blåtand, this typical technology icon portrays Bluetooth in many types of devices. The bind rune represents his name and initials. 

And, in fact, according to the Life Hack article, one of King Harald’s teeth is permanently blue since he was a renowned connoisseur of blueberries. Bluetooth is known for its function of enabling collaboration for various types of industries. It includes computing systems, mobile devices, and even the automotive market. 

General Symbols

• Broken circle with a line cutting the top edge: an icon that you need to turn on or turn off electronic, mobile devices, and other stuff today. It’s called a power button, but when initially created by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), they had the intention to define ‘stand-by.’ 

The icon was created by combining a binary system of 1 for “on” and 0 for “off,” which were used by engineers during World War II. The Institute of Electrical and Engineering Council then fixed the objective of the icon was clearly to indicate the power. 

• Piece(s) of gear: this means to allow users to customize a configuration or setting for a program or application. Before the era of computers as technology, when someone needed or wanted to customize an operational setting of a watch or machine, they needed to change the equipment or gear parts.

The idea then came up to use the gear as a common indication of the settings or configuration of a program or system. 

Audio And Sounds Symbols

• Trumpet look-a-like, and expanding waves next to it: represent the sound. When you increase the sound volume in your device, the number of waves will rise. Once you decrease it, then the number of the waves will drop to two or one. 
• Two Vertical Lines: one of the most common technology icons for audio and sounds is these two vertical lines. It somehow is similar to a musical notation, which is two diagonal lines called a caesura. The notation refers to a break in music in a normal tempo of a composition. 

Display Symbols

• Sun Look-a-like: a sun is commonly related to anything bright, which is why the display’s brightness is represented by an icon resembling a sun. 
• Crescent Moon: this last most-used icon, especially speaking for the United States and Europe, defines a sleep mode for computers or gadgets. This state refers to the human state during sleep, where they ‘seem’ neither on nor off. And the crescent moon is a metaphorical icon of the ‘sleep’ state. 

The meaning and story behind those basic technology icons are quite thought-provoking. The variations come anywhere while you surf the internet, like in one of our icon packages. Discover more of our icon creations you can use to embellish any visual communication materials you want!