Building Ionicons, Our Open Source Icon Font

Ionic's development team faced the challenge of providing high-quality iconography for their HTML5 mobile app framework, leading them to create a custom open-source icon font called Ionicons. This decision was driven by the need for control over design quality and the limitations of existing icon packs. Ionicons, composed of vector-based icons, offers scalability and sharp rendering on high-resolution displays while reducing HTTP requests. The process involved designing icons in Adobe Illustrator, converting them to font files using IcoMoon, and ensuring they rendered crisply at a default size of 16px. The initial set of over 130 custom icons was expanded to include more than 200 additional iOS 7-styled and social icons, all organized and searchable through a dedicated website. Licensed under MIT, Ionicons is intended for use with Ionic but is freely available for personal and commercial projects.