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The Narhwal Company, which makes wallets and other products from recycled ties, use icons to great effect in their product categories rather than site sections:
Using icons in the first place can often be effective; size and clarity, however, are key to icons’ usefulness in navigation. In the following example (with names changed to protect the innocent), the icons are the same height as the text’s x-height, equally spaced between the labels (rather than closer to their corresponding label) and indistinct in themselves. It’s hard to tell at a glance which icon belongs to which navigation label, or even what they are:
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