Enhancing Your Apps with Google's Material Symbols
Think of Material Symbols as a massive, high-quality, and versatile library of icons provided by Google. They are a core part of the Material Design system, which is all about creating beautiful, functional, and consistent user interfaces. These aren't just your standard image files; they're designed to be highly customizable and scalable, making them perfect for a wide range of applications.
Consistency is King
The Material Design system is widely adopted across many platforms. By using these icons, you ensure your application has a professional and consistent look and feel, especially if you're already using other Material components. This makes your UI feel more polished and intentional.
Scalability
These icons are essentially font-based or vector graphics. This means they can be scaled up or down to any size without losing quality. You'll never have to worry about blurry or pixelated icons, which is a common problem with raster images.
Customization
You can easily change the color, size, and even the "style" of the icons. For example, you can switch between "outlined," "rounded," and "sharp" versions of the same icon. This gives you immense flexibility to match your application's specific design aesthetic.
Performance
Using a single font file or a single SVG sprite is much more efficient than loading dozens of individual image files. This can significantly improve your application's loading speed and overall performance.
Simplified Workflow
You don't need to be a designer to have great-looking icons. The library is massive and covers a huge variety of use cases, from navigation and actions to file types and status indicators. This saves you valuable time and effort.
The beauty of these symbols is that they're easy to integrate, no matter what platform you're working on.
This is probably the most common use case. You can use a web font, which is a super simple and lightweight approach.
Step 1
Include the stylesheet
Add this link to the <head> of your HTML file.
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/icon?family=Material+Icons" rel="stylesheet">
For the newer Material Symbols, which offer more customization, you can use this
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Material+Symbols+Outlined" rel="stylesheet" />
Step 2
Add an icon to your HTML
You use a specific class and a textual name for the icon.
<button>
<span class="material-icons">
favorite
</span>
Like
</button>
<p>
Check your email
<span class="material-icons">
email
</span>
</p>
Step 3
Customize with CSS
You can easily change the size and color just like any other text.
.material-icons {
color: #FF5722; /* A lovely orange color */
font-size: 48px; /* Making it bigger */
}
Android Studio has a built-in tool to help you add Material Symbols.
Right-click on your res folder in Android Studio.
Navigate to New > Vector Asset.
In the dialog, select Clip Art and then click the icon to open the Material icon library.
Browse for your desired icon, select it, and click OK.
Android Studio will generate an XML vector drawable for you in the drawable folder.
Usage in your layout (XML)
<ImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:src="@drawable/ic_baseline_favorite_24"
android:tint="@color/your_custom_color" />
This requires a little more setup, but it's still straightforward. You'll download the SVG files and add them to your Xcode project's asset catalog.
Download the SVG files from the Material Symbols repository or a tool like Font Awesome's or Feather Icons to get them easily. The official Google repository is the best source.
Open your Xcode project and go to your Assets.xcassets folder.
Drag and drop the SVG files into the asset catalog.
Make sure to set the Render As property to Template Image to easily change the color.
Usage in your code
import SwiftUI
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
// In SwiftUI
Image("your_icon_name")
.foregroundColor(.blue) // You can easily change the color
.font(.system(size: 40)) // Set the size
// In UIKit (storyboard or code)
let iconImage = UIImage(named: "your_icon_name")
let tintedImage = iconImage?.withRenderingMode(.alwaysTemplate)
myImageView.image = tintedImage
myImageView.tintColor = .systemBlue
}
}
The Material Symbols library is a powerful asset for any software engineer. It provides a huge collection of consistent, high-quality, and scalable icons that can be easily integrated into web, Android, and iOS applications. By using them, you'll be able to create more polished, consistent, and performant user interfaces with less effort.
