Frequently asked questions

Yes. Individuals and businesses alike can use them for free, commercially or not — as part of a website or app, a document, a video, a flyer and so on. For commercial use, one work may use up to 16 icons — an evolution GIF counts one per 8 generations, and icons you evolved and published yourself don't count; to use more, get in touch through the contact form. Non-commercial use has no limit. You can't make one into a logo, make goods whose main design is an icon, or use them for political campaigning.

No. You can use the icons without writing the Site's name anywhere.

Yes. When you download one you can pick its dot shape, spacing, palette and background, and you can edit it freely after downloading.

You can't redistribute or sell the icons themselves as material (as an icon set or template, say), use one as a logo, mark or trademark, make and sell goods whose main design is an icon (T-shirts, stickers, messaging-app stickers…), or make your use look official. The same goes for edited icons. See the Terms for the details.

Yes — ask an AI for its opinion, have it guess how an icon might evolve, or use icons for AI training. But images an AI makes from an icon count as edited icons, under the same rules (no redistributing them as material, no merchandise and so on). Evolving on this Site stays by hand, a few dots at a time.

Every icon is born by changing another a little — “evolving” it. On a 16×16 icon you repaint 4–12 pixels, and can also change one of: the palette, the dot shape, or a one-pixel shift / mirror. The very first ancestors are drawn by the operator.

You can't evolve an icon you evolved, nor its child or grandchild: at least 3 other people's evolutions come between yours. Other branches, such as a sibling, are fine.

Up to 3 times in any 6 hours (counted per browser), so that many people's evolutions mix in a line. Meanwhile you can favorite icons, and vote in species votes and naming votes.

A new icon can be evolved after a wait. It starts at 30 minutes and doubles every two generations from the start of the line, so lines don't run away too fast. See How it works for the details.

Usually it's waiting its turn, or it's your own (or your child or grandchild). A branch also stops when a new species is chosen nearby, and while a species vote is on. Generation 64 is the last. Besides that, the operator may stop evolving from an icon and its descendants — for a while to look into it (“dormant”), or for good (“fossil”) — when, for example, it infringes someone's rights, or seems likely to as it evolves further. Those icons can still be viewed and downloaded. Meanwhile any species vote or naming vote in that line is on hold too, and its time doesn't run down.

The name and tags, yes — from My record, in the browser you published it from. The drawing can't change: icons evolved from it were made from it. What lets you edit it is kept only in that browser and can't be issued again, so you can't edit it from another device or browser, or after clearing the browser's data.

No. Other icons have been, or may be, evolved from it, and deleting it would cut their line. If an icon infringes someone's rights or has a problem, report it from its page or contact us; the operator may hide it.

Icons in a species carry its species name. In the Dotton species, for example, you put a word of your own in front: “Tako Dotton”.

When the first icon reaches the 8th generation of a line, a species vote starts in the branch under its great-grandparent. Candidates gather for 2 days, and after 3 days the most-voted becomes a new species; the other branches stop. Then the people involved propose names (up to 8, the current name included), and 3 days of voting decide it.

If your change is creative, the copyright in it may arise, and it stays yours (not every change is creative enough). The copyright in the ancestors, and in the example evolutions the operator made (in How it works and the evolution hints), belongs to the operator.

Each icon is a small change to the one before, so many people's rights overlap in one icon. If each person could decide alone, nobody could use or evolve icons without worry. So everyone keeps their rights and allows the same uses — publishing on the Site, others evolving it, anyone using it under the Terms, the operator using it to promote the Site, and the operator making it into merchandise.

No. If one person took it back, every icon evolved from theirs would stop being usable. That's why it's irrevocable.

Not with an icon as the main design: an icon you evolved also carries the earlier generations' work, so you use it on the same terms as everyone else. Drawings you made from scratch outside the Site are entirely yours.

Yes. Icons may be used for official merchandise and the like (stickers, key rings, LINE stickers and so on).

No — even as pixel art, it may infringe the original's rights. Please publish your own ideas. If you find one, report it from the icon's page.