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⌨️ Favorite Unicode sequences

March 12, 2022 at 12:00 AM

Why exactly do I find these characters so fascinating?

⫹⫺

⸎

⪔⪓ ⪔⪓ ⪔⪓

⪡⪢

⫷⫸

I came across the first icon (above) in the branding for Craig Mod’s “Ridgeline” newsletter. I thought it was just about the cleverest way to represent a stack of paper I'd ever seen ...not like I go looking for that sort of thing.

So I went looking for that sort of thing!(1) And found a whole world of interesting, figurative, and expressive icons – just waiting to be discovered among the Unicode characters

That icon “⫹⫺” is perfect! As if you needed a reason to subscribe beyond “a newsletter on Walking, Japan, Literature, and Photography”.
That icon “⫹⫺” is perfect! As if you needed a reason to subscribe beyond “a newsletter on Walking, Japan, Literature, and Photography”.

There's a whole world of Unicode characters which make great diagramming symbols(2) and I've been collecting and naming some of my favorites.

Composite symbols

⫹⫺ “stack”

⪡⪢ - “ground target”

⫷⫸ - “clearer target”

⫷⫶⫸ - “target 2”

⸎ - editorial obelism

I totally love this symbol, but it's not particularly well supported across fonts otherwise I'd use it more

⫯ - “map pin”

Repeated patterns

⪓⪔⪓⪔⪓⪔⪓⪔ - “stacked paper”

⪑⪒⪑⪒⪑⪒⪑⪒ - “”

⪤⪤⪤⪤⪤⪤⪤ - “barbed wire”

⫘⫘⫘⫘ - “chainlink”

⪪⪫⪪⪫⪪⪫⪪⪫

Basic symbols

∇ - “gradient / nabla”

⎀ - text mark

  1. I started collecting these in 2020-08-20
  2. Ironically the symbols for diagramming are some of the least inspiring
  3. https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+2A93 — an interesting Unicode character range to start at
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