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Posted on Dec 4

Building an Open-Source Icon Library with AIVector: A Practical Workflow

#ai #tutorial #ui #opensource

Why SVG Matters for Open-Source Icon Libraries

Shipping icons as PNG or JPG used to be fine — until we needed:

Crisp icons on Retina / 4K displays
Dynamic color / stroke editing
Accessibility-friendly UI
Animation (CSS/JS)
Performance-friendly web apps

SVG solves all of this:

Scalability without quality loss
Smaller file size (compared to HQ PNG)
Editable in code (paths, colors, etc.)
Works with React/Next.js/Vue natively

So if you want your icons used everywhere — mobile apps, dashboards, design tools, open-source projects — SVG is the right format.

🔧 Step 1: Prepare Your PNG Icon Set

Grab a collection of icons you want to open-source.

Ideal characteristics:

Transparent backgrounds
High-resolution
Clean edges

But don’t worry — even low-res icons can be fixed later.

Place them in a folder, e.g.:

/my-icons/

home.png
settings.png
info.png
arrow-left.png
...

🤖 Step 2: Convert Icons Using AIVector

Head over to aivector.ai

Upload an icon, wait ~5 seconds, download the SVG.

Repeat for your whole set.

Why this tool?

Fast (5–10s / icon)
Free
No watermark
Good curve fitting
No account required

Pro tip:

Icons with clear edges and strong contrast convert best.

🧹 Step 3: Cleanup SVG Code

AI-generated SVGs are rarely production-ready.

Typical problems:

Excessive decimal precision
Duplicate paths
Random IDs
Non-semantic groups
Inline styles

Recommended tools:

✔️ svgo (CLI optimizer)
✔️ SVGOMG (GUI optimizer)
✔️ SVG Cleaner

Example svgo config:

{
  "multipass": true,
  "floatPrecision": 2,
  "plugins": [
    "removeDimensions",
    "removeDoctype",
    "removeComments",
    "removeMetadata",
    "convertPathData"
  ]
}

Run optimization:

svgo *.svg --config=svgo.config.json

Results:

30–70% size reduction
Cleaner markup
Better maintainability

📛 Step 4: Standardize File Naming & Structure

Good naming matters for developers who will use your library.

Recommended naming style:

action-add.svg
arrow-left.svg
file-open.svg
user-edit.svg

Rules that help:

Kebab-case
No spaces
No uppercase
Semantic, not visual (e.g., not triangle.svg)

Organize folders:
icons/
actions/
arrows/
files/
users/

This helps scalability later.

🧪 Step 5: Preview & Test Icons

Check rendering in:

Chrome / Firefox / Safari
Dark mode + light mode
Small (16px) to large (128px) sizes
Variable stroke width

Simple HTML preview script:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body style="display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap">
  <img src="arrow-left.svg" width="32" />
  <img src="arrow-left.svg" width="64" />
  <img src="arrow-left.svg" width="128" />
</body>
</html>

Look for:

Jagged edges
Unclosed paths
Black artifacts

Fix before shipping.

📦 Step 6: Publish Your Icon Library

Option A: GitHub Repository

Structure:

README.md
LICENSE
icons/
package.json (optional)

Default license for icons:

MIT
CC-BY
CC0 (public domain)

Example README snippet:

# My Open Source SVG Icons

Clean, minimal, open-source icons for web and mobile apps.  
MIT licensed. Free for commercial use.

> npm install my-icons? maybe someday 😉

Option B: npm Package

Best for React / Vue icon libraries.

Example folder:

dist/
src/
package.json

Option C: Publish as Figma Library

Useful for designers.

🚀 Step 7: Promote Your Library

Places to share:

dev.to
GitHub trending
Product Hunt
Reddit /r/webdev
Twitter/X

Also, make sure you include:

Screenshots
Demo website
Install instructions

Your goal: Make adoption friction-less.

🔍 Realistic Expectations

AI vectorization is great, but:

Complex illustrations fail
Gradients may be lost
Tiny shapes may collapse

Manual polishing is still required.

This workflow works best for:

Line icons
Simple shapes
Logos

Not great for:

Photos
Artworks
Anime

🧠 When Should You NOT Use AI-Vectorization?

When original SVG is available
When trademark accuracy is critical
When brand guidelines forbid modification

Always check licensing.

🧰 Optional: Turn Icons into a React Library

Example component:

export function IconHome(props) {
  return (
    <svg
      width={props.size || 24}
      height={props.size || 24}
      fill="none"
      stroke="currentColor"
    >
      <path d="..." />
    </svg>
  );
}

Bundle with:

vite
rollup
tsup

Now you have a modern DX library.

🎁 Final Thoughts

Building an open-source icon library used to mean:

Manual tracing

Expensive software

Hours of work

With tools like AIVector, it becomes:

drag-and-drop → cleanup → release

And the best part?
You empower other developers & designers with reusable assets.

Open-source doesn’t have to be complicated — sometimes it’s just sharing useful pixels with the world.

💡 What You Can Do Next

Convert an existing icon set you like
Create a niche icon library (dev tools, crypto, math, anime UI…)
Add accessibility metadata
Ship to npm

And, most importantly:

Publish early, improve later.

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