Introducing SF Balloons

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0200

My second Mac app is now available: SF Balloons. The app makes it easy to search for and use SF Symbols in design and coding apps.

Why I Built It

Until recently, I was using SFMenuBar. However, the app hadn’t been updated in years, and the database was incomplete: some symbols were missing. I’d long wanted an SF Symbols app that was as easy to use as macOS’s Emoji Picker, so I built it myself.

I use SF Symbols almost every day, both for design work and coding. This is what makes SF Balloons so useful to me: the app works just as well in design programs like Figma or Sketch as it does in code editors like Xcode. It covers both worlds.

What It Can Do

The biggest advantage over Apple’s own SF Symbols app is that you can search in your own language. SF Balloons currently supports nine languages natively, with more to come. For instance, if I don’t know the English word for a symbol or can’t describe it, I can simply search in German.

Symbols you use frequently can be saved as favorites, so you don’t have to search for them every time. There’s also a history feature, and if you like, you can preview the animation for a symbol.

If you don’t like the tile view, you can switch to list view. The most important thing for me was that the app stayed smooth and fast even with over 7,000 icons. After all, it’s designed to do one thing well: help you quickly find the right symbol.

Where the Name Comes From

SF Balloons is named that way because the panel hovers over other apps, much like a balloon. And since balloons are a fun thing to play around with, there are balloons in the app too: when you open a knot, they either pop or go whizzing across the screen.

Try It Yourself

I already use SF Balloons every day, and it really saves me time. It’s just a little tool for spare moments, so I hope others find it just as useful as I do. You can download it on the App Store (opens in a new tab), for free.

Ten Years Later

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:00:00 +0200

Yesterday I relaunched my website. “Relaunched” isn’t really the right word. “Refined” is more accurate. Ten years ago, I published it in the form it was in until yesterday, and I haven’t done a major redesign since then. What has changed most over the last ten years is my portfolio, which has grown significantly thanks to the many app icon projects I’ve had the opportunity to work on. The design itself has remained essentially the same, aside from a major update two or three years ago, when I added custom cursors throughout the site.

The Website Revamp

I’d been thinking about a new, or at least slightly modified, website for quite some time. I think every designer knows this: you’re never really done with your portfolio or website. It’s almost a running joke among us. But when I honestly look back on the last ten years, I was absolutely satisfied with my site and never felt the need for a complete redesign. That’s precisely why I didn’t go through with one this time. I liked the design. I thought it was timeless, and several clients have told me over the years that the site suits me well. It was just the content that wasn’t quite right anymore.

That’s why I refined the content in certain areas. “Portfolio” became “Work”, and it was important to me to noticeably shift the focus: away from just app icons, toward the apps I build myself. The old site hadn’t reflected that at all. I kept yellow as the main color simply because it’s my favourite color. My header stayed too, though I’ve highlighted it anew to more clearly show where my actual priorities lie. The projects are also no longer listed one after another but arranged in tiles, making better use of screen space. In many places, I’ve tried to introduce more consistency and more detail. Basically, the whole thing was a major polish, fine-tuning the edges.

When you scroll through your own work after ten years, it’s a bit of a trip down memory lane, full of nostalgia for cool projects and cool people I got to meet along the way. I’m still proud of that, and I’m happy to show it off. At the same time, I wanted to make it clearer that my skills aren’t limited to app icons. As I’ve taken on more and more personal projects, it’s become increasingly difficult to find them. The website is now meant to serve as a hub for what I do because I think these things are cool and believe I can help others with the tools I’m currently building.

The New Blog

As part of the redesign, I’ve also added a blog: my very first one. I’m noticing a strong trend right now where people are rediscovering the web for themselves and want to have their space, independent of the big social networks and without having to hand over their data to them. And longer posts are no longer shared as threads but end up as articles on people’s own blogs. I think that’s great. I’ve never had a blog myself, but lately, I’ve felt an increasing desire to share the experiences I’ve gathered building apps, and, ideally, to help others who run into the same problems. I don’t know 100 percent yet what exactly will come of it; we’ll just have to see.

The tools available today to take an idea from concept to finished product have become so accessible that it would almost be a shame not to use them. The barrier to entry has dropped so low that it really just comes down to overcoming your own inner resistance. That’s precisely what I want to overcome with this blog: just do it and publish, instead of endlessly overthinking the next article in my head. I’m excited about this new space and can’t wait to see where it takes me from here.

Yannick Lung · Blog