Icons here have one job: let a scanner tell the three cells apart before reading them. That is worth doing, because a row of bare numbers is legible but silent. It is also easy to overdo, so every variation below keeps the icon subordinate to the figure; the number stays the loudest thing in its cell.
All three marks are drawn on the same 24-unit grid at 1.6 stroke with round caps, the same construction as the button icons already in the page, so they read as one family rather than as something fetched from a different set. A bullseye for years (accumulated aim, not a clock), a map pin for states, a group for the team.
nowWhat is there now, no iconsThe baseline. Figure and caption on one baseline, hairline rules between. It is legible and it is silent: nothing here helps a scanner tell the three apart before reading them.
21years of business law
3states: Washington, Oregon and Colorado
9on the team
1Icon above, everything left-alignedThe icon sits on its own line above the number, in FREEDOM so it never competes with the figure. Three stacked marks scan as a row at a glance, and the cell keeps its existing left alignment so the bar still reads as a table rather than three cards.
21years of business law
3states: Washington, Oregon and Colorado
9on the team
2Icon inline, before the figureThe tightest option: icon, number, caption on one line. Nothing gets taller, so the bar costs the page no extra height at all: the icon simply takes the space the left padding was wasting. The safest of the five.
21years of business law
3states: Washington, Oregon and Colorado
9on the team
3Icon in a tinted holderThe icon gets a soft square of FREEDOM behind it, which gives the row a visual anchor at its left edge and lines the three holders up like a column. More presence than 1 or 2, and the only version where the icons read as a set rather than three separate marks.
21years of business law
3states: Washington, Oregon and Colorado
9on the team
4Icon as a watermark behind the figureThe icon is enlarged, dropped to a very low opacity and placed behind the number, so it reads as texture rather than as a second object. Quietest of the five and the most fragile, because at this weight the target and the pin are nearly indistinguishable, which defeats the point of having them.
21years of business law
3states: Washington, Oregon and Colorado
9on the team
5Flag instead of a pin, on a NIGHT bandTwo changes at once so the comparison is useful. The bar becomes a NIGHT band, so the credentials stop being a rule between paragraphs and become a thing on the page, and the states cell uses a flag rather than a map pin. The flag is the wrong icon here. A US flag says the United States; the claim is three specific states, which is nearly the opposite. A pin says a place, which is what is meant. Included so that choice is made deliberately rather than by default.