What's an identicon and when should I use one?

An identicon is a small, deterministic, symmetric pattern derived from a hash of some input string — GitHub renders one for every account that hasn't uploaded a profile picture. The point is that the same email or username always maps to the same visual pattern, so users get a stable default avatar without you having to store or moderate uploaded images. Use identicons whenever you want non-empty default avatars in a comment thread, a contributor list, an issue tracker, or any UI where "no photo" would otherwise leave a grey circle.

How are initials extracted for Chinese vs English names?

The extractor looks at the script first. For Latin names ("Alex Chen", "marie dubois") it splits on whitespace and grabs the first letter of the first two words, uppercased — "AC", "MD". For CJK names ("李雷", "王小明", "山田太郎") it takes the first character as-is — "李", "王", "山" — because that's how Chinese, Japanese, and Korean address books surface a person. Single-word names fall back to the first 1–2 characters of the name itself, so "Cher" becomes "C" and "李" stays "李". You can override the extracted initials in the input box if your team uses different conventions.

Can I use this for production user avatars under GDPR?

Yes — and identicon mode is one of the safer defaults you can ship. Because the avatar is derived from a hash of an email or user id and never round-trips to a server, you don't create a new piece of personal data; you're just visualising the same identifier the user already gave you. The PNG and SVG output is generated entirely in the browser, so no third-party processor is involved. Initials mode is similarly fine as long as the name you feed in is data the user has already provided to your product.

Why is identicon output deterministic?

Identicon mode uses a small string-hash (FNV-1a 32-bit) of the input to seed which of the 15 unique cells in a 5×5 horizontally-symmetric grid are "on", and to derive the hue. That means "alex@example.com" produces the exact same pattern every time, on every device, with no state stored anywhere. This is what makes identicons useful as default avatars: the same user always sees the same picture, so the UI doesn't flicker between sessions.

Can I batch-generate avatars for a list of users?

The tool itself renders one avatar at a time in the UI, but every mode is fully deterministic (initials and identicon) or seedable (geometric) — so once you've picked a style you like, the underlying functions (`drawAvatar`, `avatarSvg`) can be lifted into a small script and looped over a CSV of names or emails to produce a directory of PNG / SVG files. The exported helpers are pure and have no DOM side-effects beyond the canvas you hand them, which makes them safe to run inside a build step or a one-off Node script.

Seed default avatars for a 2,000-row contributor table

You import a CSV of 2,000 GitHub-style usernames into an admin dashboard and every empty profile shows a grey circle. Run each username through identicon mode, save the SVG keyed by username, and the same handle "octo-dev-42" renders the same pattern on every page load. No upload form, no moderation queue, no storage of a single binary image.

Build a monogram set for a 30-person team page

The marketing site needs headshots for 30 staff but legal hasn't cleared the photos yet. Drop each name into initials mode, pick the Aurora palette so "Priya Nair" and "李雷" sit on the same gradient family, export 256 px PNGs, and ship the team grid today. Swap in real photos later without touching the layout, since both land in the same square 256 px slot.

Fill a Figma mock with believable placeholder faces

A social-feed prototype with 12 comment rows looks dead with grey discs. Geometric mode re-rolls circles and triangles on gradient backgrounds, so you drop 12 distinct 64 px avatars that read as "real users" without lifting stock photos that derail the review into "is this person real?". Re-roll any seed you dislike and export straight to PNG.

Generate a stable fallback for an email client's sender chips

A webmail UI shows a 40 px chip per sender. For contacts with no photo, hash the email through identicon mode so "billing@acme.io" always draws the same chip across the inbox, the thread view, and the search results. Because the hash is FNV-1a, the same address on a phone and a laptop renders byte-identical, so nothing flickers between sessions.

Avatar Generator — initials, identicon, or geometric, PNG and SVG

Generate avatars from initials, identicons, or random shapes. Download PNG/SVG.

Runs locally
Category Image
Best for Getting images to the right size, format, or weight before publishing.

Name

Size: 200px

Shape

Palette

Preview

What this tool does

A 100% client-side avatar generator with three modes designers and developers actually use. Initials mode takes a name like "Alex Chen" or "李雷" and renders a monogram avatar on a gradient circle — picks "AC" for English, "李" for Chinese, "Mü" for German, no special casing needed. Identicon mode hashes any string (email, username, user id) into a deterministic 5×5 symmetric GitHub-style pattern, so the same input always produces the same avatar — perfect for seeding default profile pictures without storing any image. Geometric mode composes random circles, triangles, and rounded squares on a gradient background, re-rolling on demand for brand-deck-style placeholder art. Every mode gives you size (50–512 px), an Aurora preset palette or your own hex colors, three shape masks (square, rounded, circle), and PNG plus SVG export. No image is uploaded, no API is hit — the bytes never leave your tab.

Tool details

Input: Files + Text + Numbers; The page exposes text boxes, numeric controls, file pickers, or structured inputs depending on the tool.
Output: Live result + Copy + Download; The result area focuses on usable output, with copy, download, or preview actions when supported.
Privacy: Browser-side processing; The main tool logic does not call an external API, so inputs normally stay in the current tab.
Save / share: No account required; Open the page and use it; whether results survive refresh depends on the tool.
Performance budget: Initial JS <= 16 KB; No WASM budget is declared, keeping the tool quick to open on mobile.
Best fit: Image · Designer; Category and role tags drive related tools, internal links, and quick fit checks.

How to use

1. Input

Paste or drop your content into the tool panel.
2. Process

Click the button. All processing is local in your browser.
3. Copy / Download

Copy the result or download to disk in one click.

How Avatar Generator fits into your work

Use it while preparing images for websites, stores, social posts, forms, or handoff packages.

Image jobs

Getting images to the right size, format, or weight before publishing.
Checking privacy-sensitive EXIF and metadata before sharing a photo.
Creating publish-ready variants without uploading private assets.

Image checks

Resize to the real display size before compressing.
Review transparency, animation, and color profile changes after conversion.
Strip or review metadata when the image contains private context.

Good next steps

These links move the current task into a more complete workflow.

Real-world use cases

Seed default avatars for a 2,000-row contributor table
You import a CSV of 2,000 GitHub-style usernames into an admin dashboard and every empty profile shows a grey circle. Run each username through identicon mode, save the SVG keyed by username, and the same handle "octo-dev-42" renders the same pattern on every page load. No upload form, no moderation queue, no storage of a single binary image.
Build a monogram set for a 30-person team page
The marketing site needs headshots for 30 staff but legal hasn't cleared the photos yet. Drop each name into initials mode, pick the Aurora palette so "Priya Nair" and "李雷" sit on the same gradient family, export 256 px PNGs, and ship the team grid today. Swap in real photos later without touching the layout, since both land in the same square 256 px slot.
Fill a Figma mock with believable placeholder faces
A social-feed prototype with 12 comment rows looks dead with grey discs. Geometric mode re-rolls circles and triangles on gradient backgrounds, so you drop 12 distinct 64 px avatars that read as "real users" without lifting stock photos that derail the review into "is this person real?". Re-roll any seed you dislike and export straight to PNG.
Generate a stable fallback for an email client's sender chips
A webmail UI shows a 40 px chip per sender. For contacts with no photo, hash the email through identicon mode so "billing@acme.io" always draws the same chip across the inbox, the thread view, and the search results. Because the hash is FNV-1a, the same address on a phone and a laptop renders byte-identical, so nothing flickers between sessions.

Common pitfalls

Feeding a display name into identicon mode and a stable id into initials mode is backwards. Hash the immutable id (email, user id) for identicons; show the human-readable name for initials, e.g. id "u_8812" for the pattern, "Alex Chen" for the "AC" monogram.
Exporting PNG at 64 px then upscaling in CSS to a 128 px retina slot gives blurry chips. Either export at 2x (128 px) or use the SVG output, which stays crisp at any size.
Assuming geometric mode is reproducible like the other two. It re-rolls on demand, so if you need the same placeholder twice, export the file once and reuse it rather than re-generating and expecting a match.

Privacy

Everything runs in your browser. Names, emails, and user ids you type are hashed or rendered to canvas locally and never sent to any server. The non-sensitive inputs (selected mode, size, palette, shape mask) are encoded into the page URL so a shared link reopens the same settings, but the actual name or email you typed is treated as sensitive and is not placed in the URL. Exported PNG and SVG files are built in the tab and download directly.

FAQ

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Avatar Generator — initials, identicon, or geometric, PNG and SVG

What this tool does

Tool details

How to use

1. Input

2. Process

3. Copy / Download

How Avatar Generator fits into your work

Image jobs

Image checks

Good next steps

Real-world use cases

Seed default avatars for a 2,000-row contributor table

Build a monogram set for a 30-person team page

Fill a Figma mock with believable placeholder faces

Generate a stable fallback for an email client's sender chips

Common pitfalls

Privacy

FAQ

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