Icons carry a surprising amount of a mobile UI's clarity, and shipping them as scalable vectors keeps every screen sharp across device densities. react-native-vector-icons bundles thousands of glyphs from popular icon families and exposes them as simple components — here is how I set it up and avoid the usual breakage.
Key takeaways
- Use vector glyphs instead of PNGs so icons stay crisp at every density and respond to color and size props.
- Link the font files correctly per platform — most 'icons show as squares' bugs are missing font registration.
- Pick one or two icon families and standardize sizes to keep the UI consistent.
Why vector icons
A vector icon is a font glyph, so it scales without blurring and you can recolor or resize it with style props instead of shipping multiple raster assets. react-native-vector-icons packages well-known sets — MaterialIcons, Ionicons, FontAwesome, Feather, and more — behind a consistent component API.
You import the family you want and render an icon by name with size and color props, which makes it trivial to match icons to your theme and keep tap targets consistent.
Installation and font registration
After installing the package, the critical step is making the platforms aware of the font files. On modern React Native the autolinking and asset configuration handle most of it, but on iOS the fonts must be declared in Info.plist (UIAppFonts), and on Android the Gradle config copies the fonts at build time. If icons render as empty squares or question marks, font registration is almost always the cause.
Rebuild the native app (not just reload JS) after adding the package, because font assets are bundled at native build time.
Custom icon sets
For brand-specific glyphs you can generate a custom icon font (for example from a tool like IcoMoon) and load it with the createIconSet helper, giving your custom icons the same API as the built-in families. This keeps a single, consistent icon component across stock and custom artwork.