Short story first.
Version 2.0 of my Adinkra icon pack is up on my blog:
in vector & image formats for any graphic project, personal & commercial.
...Wait. Any project?
Ah, you caught that. We're going for adaptability, not heritage.
What! Why?
Mm. Long story.
Symmetry reflects royalty.
The original adinkra artisans had to wrestle with ink and stamp blocks, a very quirky medium. Straight lines were hard, but every step of drawing, carving and printing circles brought its own headache... So naturally they put curves on every other icon! These people flexed the difficulty. (In our era, they'd probably be pixel-perfect gurus.)
This history is baked into every adinkra icon, and that's a very good thing. However, one might argue that the artists weren't aiming for this texture, any more than video gaming pioneers were presenting 8-bit as an ideal resolution. One might ask why these legends made a series of concentric circles the 'king' of their set, and follow that question to its digital extreme...
I love pixel art, by the way. And I appreciate adinkra's organic feel; that was a big focus for my first icon pack. But while researching that, I made 12 super-modern icons, which was a lot of fun. That led me to wonder how the heritage would translate in a sans-serif-friendly context. (It's not just me, right? The classic ones are quite serif-biased.)
This history is baked into every adinkra icon, and that's a very good thing. However, one might argue that the artists weren't aiming for this texture, any more than video gaming pioneers were presenting 8-bit as an ideal resolution. One might ask why these legends made a series of concentric circles the 'king' of their set, and follow that question to its digital extreme...
I love pixel art, by the way. And I appreciate adinkra's organic feel; that was a big focus for my first icon pack. But while researching that, I made 12 super-modern icons, which was a lot of fun. That led me to wonder how the heritage would translate in a sans-serif-friendly context. (It's not just me, right? The classic ones are quite serif-biased.)
Right? And I don't even love this new Gye Nyame. It only looks weird on its own, though. The pack is optimized for patterns and typographic ornament, so each icon sacrifices some uniqueness for the harmony of the set. When you need a visual anchor, I'd always advise customizing – but either v1 or v2 can get you started.
✽ ✽ ✽
End of long story. Specimens!
† Printmakers would impose rhythm on the organic icons with these grid-lines, called Nkyimu. But the Sans icons almost want to touch each other.
Convinced? Glad to hear it.
Will be checking the comments for ideas on how to improve it, maybe do a v2.1 soon...
Thanks for viewing! Stay fabulous, platypus.
CREDITS: Two fancy-dress lads: from Phyllis Galembo's Maske, via this blog • Shekere: Wikimedia Commons • African drum: Wikimedia Commons • Dancing boy: by Emmanuel 'Bob Pixel' Bobbie, legend; related Bē project; buy a fine print • Adowa lady: ... (man. I know it's from Flickr, but I can't find it.) • Crown: grabbed from Pinterest (invalid source link)
Adinkra resources: just discovered CSDT, mind quietly blown; nice presentation and depth • more context • good captions • 100+ icons for UI/UX, package manager support (traditional drawing on 24px grid)
