Italic icon

When to use it

A slanted serif 'I' is the rich-text italic toggle, always paired with bold in a formatting bar. Phosphor names it text-italic; the rest call it italic. The slant is the whole message, so at very small sizes it can flatten into a plain vertical stroke — give toolbar buttons enough size that the lean stays visible, or the control reads as a generic 'I'.

Reach for italic inside a text editor's formatting toolbar to toggle slanted emphasis on the selection. Like bold, it only communicates as a control when it sits among its formatting siblings; the slanted letterform is the clue. Show an active state when the caret is in italic text. Don't repurpose it as a generic 'emphasis' or 'info' marker away from an editor, where the lean loses its meaning.

• Reaching for Bold? Reach for the heavy B for weight emphasis; italic changes slant, not weight.
• Reaching for Info? Reach for the info glyph for an explanatory note, not for a text-style toggle.