(Continuing from the old Android 4 + 5 and Android 6 topics, with Android 7 currently still to come from Fairphone and Android 8 already there in the form of LineageOS)
TestlaUnread can show notification badges in Nova Launcher. Shows number of notifications or informative icons in e.g. WhatsApp. Both work in Oreo but paid apps. Haven’t compared it with the one previously mentioned though.
EDIT: Oh thank you for mentioning Whicons. I’ve been searching for such a thing for ages, and only found incomplete versions of such icon themes.
Since Android 4(?) i fell in love with the Smart-Launcher. Even paid for the pro-version.
Best thing: Simple. One drawer with categories (where apps get sorted automatically based on their tags; manual movement is easily possible) for all apps, Unified search (apps, contact, messages, web, …), some “widget-only”-pages.
(the reddish ones are due to Red Moon being active)
Widgets are pretty minimal (Öffi for public transport, Authy for 2-factor-auth, WarnWetter for Weather - things you need occasionally but don’t want to search for for ages )
Note that this is done in a remote server. The launcher gets your list of apps and then it sends it to a computer you don’t necessarily trust. I won’t recommend it for privacy concerns (it can’t be disabled, unless you take out the internet permission from the launcher… which is a good practice, anyway).
At least that was how it worked while I used it years ago for a long time. I don’t think anything has changed.
1.4 Each time you attempt to interact with Smart Launcher, such as when you request automatic sorting for an app or the list of available themes, you will send and receive data for which your Network will charge at your usual data rates.
most icons in the statusbar hidden via lineage OS settings. what you can see is: battery charge limit, clock, root, vpn (orbot) & battery level.
long press on the home button takes me to the kiss launcher to quickly search for contacts, apps, websites, fairphone forum topics & tags
only bonafide FLOSS apps from F-Droid with Guardian Project repo enabled (only 3 of which have anti-features) + 2 apps directly from their projects’ websites: BOINC, MusicBrainz