Matt:
Jory, happy New Year. My—we've done a lot of stuff on the awesome verse and here we are. If I'm correct on my calculations, our third time doing this, which is kind of—

Jory:
You'd think we had it dialed in by now, but nope.

Matt:
You would think? Yep.

Jory:
You probably do. I don't. I'm feeling rusty.

Matt:
Or—

Jory:
All the time.

Matt:
Well, yeah, but you know, uh, I feel like it was just a number of days ago coming out of the holiday hibernation, maybe taking some time off. Um, consuming too much media, consuming too much junk food. And the other day I was just like, what day is it? You know, just the standard stuff. But it was good.

Jory:
I think if you lose track of days during the holiday, you're doing it right.

Matt:
Yeah, that—that's, I try and remind myself of that and say, you gotta recharge, you know?

Jory:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Matt:
That's how I choose to see it. Well, golly gee, I guess we could talk about all the great stuff that we shipped, or all the things maybe that they've missed throughout the year that we've been working on, and things that we can be looking forward to.

Jory:
Yeah, yeah. It's weird. Um, we did so much in 2025 that looking back at it all, I was like, wait, no way. That was this year—or last year—that, no way. Um, because we packed it in. And I don't know if it's the biggest thing we did, but kind of from my perspective it's one of them, which is we released Font Awesome seven.

Matt:
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. So tell folks a little bit—what's new? What should they be checking out?

Jory:
Oh boy. So there's a lot new with Font Awesome seven. The biggest thing is that we introduced a whole slew of new, kind of what we're calling small-batch icon packs with FAU and Pro Plus. So I think right now we have a total of eight packs available to folks, with more on the way—hint, hint, hint—some very soon.

And those are uniquely designed, bespoke icon packs that are unlike any of our core icons. So if you have a hankering for something super crazy or hand-drawn or something with a little bit of a different personality than our classic icons, Pro Plus is the place to look.

We also released a whole bunch of brand new icons in Font Awesome itself, in our classic and sharp and duotone and sharp duotone styles. And then as part of that whole thing did a little bit of a design tweak for all of our core icons to kind of make them a little bit more thoughtful—key shapes, grids, and canvases—so kind of a little rebuilding from the ground up in some sense, but in the same old Font Awesome flavor.

Matt:
Mm-hmm.

And the icon packs—they are sort of like a select number of maybe the most used icons? Like a few hundred or so?

Jory:
Yeah, like 200 to 300 typically in each of those packs. And those are based on the data we pulled about the most-used icons. They would cover all the bases for a typical website, if not more. So you can use those and you're pretty much off to the races.

It does not have some of our more unique icons—like dumpster fire is still only in the Font Awesome core styles—but they do have a lot of icons, and we have plans to add more.

Matt:
And we have a few that are already live, and throughout the year we'll be releasing more. So if I'm remembering right, we've got Chisel and—not Dog—Chisel, Not Dog, and Jelly. Do I have that right?

Jory:
They're more than that, Matt.

My problem is I know which ones are on the way, so I don't wanna show our hand too much. So of the Pro Plus packs that are available today, we've got Chisel, which was designed by our friend Laura Bohill and is just a completely unique icon pack that is just so, so fun. Etch, Jelly, Not Dog, Slab, Thumbprint, Utility, and Whiteboard.

Matt:
My goodness. Okay. Gosh. I guess a few more were released that I wasn't aware of. That's awesome.

And when it comes to the icon packs we're gonna be releasing this year, we plan to have standalone conversations on the podcast with those designers. So you're gonna wanna keep an eye out for that. We'll have a conversation with Laura Bohill and others. That'll be fun—super talented, insanely talented folks. Just going in and looking up their resumes and Instagram handles, I'm like, holy cow.

Jory:
Oh, it was so fun to work with them. And it was nice to be in a place where we could give them a very loose creative brief and let them run wild. Seriously, check out the Chisel set—it is unlike any icons I've ever seen. If you're using it in a project, please reach out. I'd love to see it in use outside of our faux examples on the website. Full of character, full of personality—something I would never have designed myself.

Matt:
Yeah. We launched with seven, we have eight now, and another one coming out in a matter of weeks if not sooner. And even more we're putting finishing touches on.

And to celebrate the launch of Font Awesome seven, we did our usual and filmed a marketing video. Same actors from the original Font Awesome Kickstarter. Always fun, and it also involved the Milton character in a hotdog suit—always a plus.

Jory:
Yeah, if you haven't yet, definitely go to our YouTube channel. We have a bunch of videos in what we call the FA Awesome Cinematic Universe. We've done one for FA Awesome five, six, seven, Web Awesome—featuring a lot of the same actors, characters, jokes.

The FAU seven video was no exception. We filmed at a diner in LA that's been featured in a lot of movies. We also filmed a behind-the-scenes video, which is up on YouTube. Steve—the actor who plays Milton—has been in all of them. We put him in a hotdog suit to represent the Not Dog icon pack, and the number of takes he did eating that hotdog was astounding. One joke in that scene was completely ad-libbed and made it into the final cut.

Matt:
Yeah. Being there for the first time, seeing the whole crew and all the detail—like food stylists bringing in new hotdogs every take—it was amazing. That crew was a finely tuned machine.

Another huge development this year was the official launch of Web Awesome. It's live—you can go to the site and start playing around.

Jory:
Yeah, Cory LaViska joined our team with Shoelace, we plus-one'd it and turned it into Web Awesome. There's a Pro version and an open source version. We officially released it in October, and it's getting better all the time. We're even using Web Awesome internally now on our own sites.

Matt:
Yep. And we have podcast episodes with Cory and Lindsay diving deep into that. It's been an awesome development within the Awesomeverse.

Jory:
Within the Awesomeverse—and the Web Awesome Kickstarter video is also on YouTube. Steve shows up again as Milton.

Matt:
Yep. And we've been working with Zach from Eleventy. Some things are in the works. Zach and Connor had a great podcast conversation about using Eleventy for docs. It's been awesome to see everyone helping each other.

Jory:
Yeah. Speaking of Zach and Eleventy, I don't wanna spoil anything—but I did just get back from another trip to LA to see Steve again. Read between the lines.

Matt:
Yep. Good stuff in the works.

We've also been ramping up content—newsletters, podcast, blog. You started the icon puzzle in the newsletter.

Jory:
How dare you accuse me of plagiarizing my own work. Yes, I made a book called Goes Without Saying. The newsletter puzzle was kind of on a whim, and the response blew me away. People post it to Slack, whole companies guess together. So now every newsletter includes a puzzle.

Matt:
It's just fun.

Jory:
Exactly. It doesn't make money. It's just fun. And if folks want it, they can turn on the newsletter in their account settings.

Matt:
On the topic of fun, there was an appearance of a special awesome friend…

Jory:
I'll give context. We were joking at a company dinner about having a mascot, and someone said “Awesome Possum.” Turns out Eleventy already had a possum mascot. Chef's kiss. I commissioned a puppet. He debuted during the Font Awesome seven livestream.

Matt:
Well, maybe we can have him on to send us off.

Jory:
I'll call his people.

Matt:
I've heard he's been out back rummaging through trash.

Jory:
And things possums shouldn't be doing.

Matt:
If folks listened to last season, we had non–Awesomeverse guests—David Darnes, Brian Zug, Dan Cederholm, Andy Maier, Don Clark. A lot of themes around curiosity and constraints. Anything stand out for you?

Jory:
Dan Cederholm, for sure. Huge influence. Also the episode on brain science and perception.

Matt:
That was Brian Glenny. We talked about the accessibility icon redesign and how people perceive symbols.

Jory:
Yeah—when does a square and triangle become a house in your brain? Icons aren't perfect for every situation. Context matters.

Matt:
If folks haven't listened, queue them all up on a road trip.

Jory:
We did a lot in 2025. A lot coming in 2026.

Matt:
Any teasers?

Jory:
Very soon—Font Awesome 7.2, another Pro Plus pack, new icons, maybe a possum icon. More Web Awesome components. Some stuff stupid fun, some world-changing.

Matt:
That’s right. That’s what we’re all about—changing the world here at Font Awesome. One icon at a time.

Is there anything we missed?

Jory:
That covers it—oh! The possum wants to say hello. Matt, are you free?

Matt:
Absolutely.

Jory:
Have a great 2026. Maybe I'll be back on another episode.

Matt:
Thanks, Jory. And thanks folks for listening. We'll try to get the possum.

Jory:
All—

Matt:
All right.

Jory:
One last thing—we made Font Awesome and Web Awesome logos out of LEGO in 2025.

Matt:
Can folks get those?

Jory:
Just for us—but we'll post the instructions on the blog.

Matt:
Awesome.

Jory:
If you're a true superfan, make one and share it.

Matt:
That's right.

Jory:
Maybe we'll send you something.

Matt:
Thanks, Jory.

Jory:
Bye.

Matt:
Bye.

Matt:
Oh—awesome. Poss—

Awesome Possum:
Hi.

Matt:
Awesome Possum.

Awesome Possum:
Wait, I didn’t agree to this. Did you talk to my publicist?

Matt:
You signed yesterday.

Awesome Possum:
I—

Matt:
You eat a lot of garbage too.

Awesome Possum:
I love it. Do you?

Matt:
Not eating it. Just curbside.

Will you sign us off?

Awesome Possum:
Yes. Like and subscribe. Matt is awesome.

Matt:
The theme song?

Awesome Possum:
Rob.

Matt:
Composed by Ronnie Martin. Video help from—

Awesome Possum:
Isaac.

Matt:
Produced and edited by ... this guy right here ... 

Awesome Possum:
You, Matt Johnson.

Matt:
Correct. Anything else?

Awesome Possum:
Podcast Possum.

Matt:
We may need a rebrand.

Awesome Possum:
Yeah.

Matt:
Anything else?

Awesome Possum:
Nope.

Matt:
That’s it.

Awesome Possum:
I’m gonna go eat some garbage.

Matt:
Avoid the poisonous stuff.

Awesome Possum:
Okay.

Matt:
Bye.

Awesome Possum:
Bye.