Very nice work. A background couldn’t hurt though. Just some small texture just to give it a feel. Your choice though, lol. As for the whole removal of the Icon, I am sure you could try looking for it in the Theme Editor right in the post or comments coding. Around there, there should be a small line for the image that you could just delete, I am sure, and it will remove it from the site. I always mess around with my sites coding and what not just to get something the way I want it. Lol.