If you are about to point out that I went overboard to produce so many sketches for one tiny icon for the New York Times, you are right. There is one thing to be said about that, and that is longevity. Icons sometimes get to be used just once, and sometimes they grace the same repeating rubric section for years.

Spot illustration is a term from print media; it refers to the publishing size, meaning they should read well on a small scale. Whereas icons are more graphical and abstract to be used ultra-small in digital environments and print.