Remix Icon: For Developers & Designers
Pefo: Should’ve just said “for creators!”
A Lil Artsy
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” The ability to navigate through your knowledge bank and eliminate unnecessary details so that the necessary ones have enough room to fully exist. Oftentimes, simple refers to minimal. Since there’s a fine line between simple and boring, when minimal lacks that intention, that balance, and that wow factor — that cherry on top — it can easily become dull and lifeless.
The Awakening of Alter Ego
“Okay back off, da Vinci. So much for an art class.” That’s my other side, Pefo 🤨, kicks in and reminds me that I’m just a developer. While “just a developer” is debatable, it’s true that I design code, I write code, I read code, I understand code, I talk code, I live and bre…
[Pefo 🤨 interrupts]: “Yea yea, a developer! We get it!”
The Clash
For many of us, developers, not only because we rejoice when our code is presented to users in a cool way that we strive to build great software experiences, but a great user experience (a.k.a. UI/UX, a.k.a. frontend) is as important as a stable bugs-free business logic (a.k.a. backend… the infamous backend).
As a frontend developer, the looks, feels, and behaviors of apps is what I code. While it has many challenges, finding a great icon pack has been among mine. To a point that I started designing my own.
[Pefo 🤨]: “The keyword is ‘started’ here!”
For years and for many reasons, I have been a huge fan of Nova and AntDesign icon packs. The packs offer a few glyphs as a free version and complete packs with thousands of glyphs as a paid version. Feel free to label them “premium” or “pro” to justify the price tag that comes with them. While the price tag might or might not be a show-stopper, for me, having freedom to modify the work and share with the community is vital.
[Pefo 🤨]: “Oh you are a Good Samaritan now?”
So when all else fails, go open-source. Thing is, most open-source packs fall a little short, to my taste at least. Apart from Material Icons by Google and the ones maintained by the Community, most popular open-source packs have a very limited number of glyphs. For example, Feather offers only 286 glyphs, and PrimeIcons offers a little over 200 glyphs.
The Get Along
Different people might have different needs and different views and different goals. So what one finds to be a great design, another might be on the opposite end of the spectrum peacefully disliking the very same design.
[Pefo 🤨]: “Point!”
Design is a very broad term. To be minimal, let’s just say that a design is an approach aiming at solving a problem. Now what approach would you take and why would you take it, up to a point is subjective.
The height and width of the glyphs, the thickness of strokes, the paddings, the angles of the paths, the angles of the corners, the radius of the corners, the radius of the curved paths, the spaces between path breaks, the space between openings — both vertical and horizontal, both inner and outer — , the alignment of paths — vertical, horizontal, and diagonal, both inner and outer — , the int…
[Pefo 🤨]: “Preach! We can go on and on about this!”
These are some of the criteria I consider when evaluating any icon pack. Not like assessing and rating kinda way, but more of things I can not unsee after looking at a pack. I find consistency and connection in-and-between the things I mentioned above make the glyphs in a pack either united or straight-out dubious.
The Premium Open-source
Consistency and connection with a little bit of sauce is what drew me to the Remix Icon pack. Like immediately. Like Kipepe-level immediately! I didn’t know that it has more than 2,000+ glyphs, just the fact that it’s open-source and has a super-cool design with both outlined and filled glyphs made it clear that I will do something with it. Something I’ve been feeling the need to do for a long time.
I was on Skype call with Mzee Gamba when he shared his screen and a tab on Safari with Feather icons was active. “Uh, naona vi-icons vyetu. Good stuff!”, I commented. He said, “Yo, you should check out this pack, Remix Icon.” and that was it. Two days later, I’m developing a Remix Icon Flutter plugin. Version 0.0.1 is out on my GitHub page so feel free to use it. It’s the plugin I’ve used to implement a quick demo you are seeing in the shots.
If to design is to make a solution, what problem(s) do icons solve, you may ask. Well, one is to represent words with symbols, hence, use less space. They might look tiny, but icons are little complex phrases on their own. Another is to help users navigate our products which , in the this case, is the software. Human-Computer Interaction 101. There’s our problem and the desired solution, thus with those known the approach for solution should be easy… right? Not really, because solving a problem is one thing, but solving a problem in style is a completely different story that it becomes a problem itself.
[Pefo 🤨]: “Should ask them if they follow!”
I believe you are following.
Coupe de Grâce
Hey, wanna do the outro?
[Pefo 🤨]: “… … Amani!”
