For players, alongside the aesthetics and effects of champions, skill icons are also a significant part of what leaves a strong impression on them. It’s no coincidence that new champions like Sett, Aphelios, Senna… attract players as their skill icon sets are incredibly impressive.
Besides the new champions, the old characters in League of Legends don’t actually have outdated skill sets; in fact, champions like Jarvan IV and Olaf are still hot picks in the jungle right now. However, their skill icons couldn’t be worse as they’ve been designed for too long. Therefore, an artist named Luna L has taken it upon themselves to design a new set of skill icons for the “neglected” champions of League of Legends like Janna, Jarvan IV, Olaf, Wukong, and Volibear.
First up is the redesign of Janna; besides beautifying the icons, this artist also revamped the icons for her W – Howling Gale and R – Monsoon abilities. In fact, Janna’s old W icon resembled a different version of her Q – Howling Wind ability, and Riot couldn’t think of anything else, so they just used that and it hasn’t changed since.
Perhaps the least changed is Jarvan IV; his icon set is not too bad and just needs a little more polish in terms of visual effects to look much better.
In Olaf’s upgrade, the most impressive aspect is probably his ultimate – Ragnarok. It gives players the feeling that with this ability, Olaf will be an unstoppable warrior. Meanwhile, the old icon is truly hard to understand why Riot made it that way, combining Olaf’s shadow with some random letter icon to represent his ultimate.
Similarly to Jarvan IV, Volibear’s skill set hasn’t changed much in terms of icons during the upgrade. Instead, the color coordination has been excellently done to highlight Volibear’s essence – the Thunder Bear, with blue tones taking the lead.
Lastly is Wukong, whose new icon set focuses on highlighting distinct Chinese details to impress players. Perhaps Riot Games should consider applying these ideas to League of Legends because even a small change like this can make players more excited when using the old champions mentioned above.