i've been working on an open-source project called blobz, which basically takes care of default profile pictures for your apps.
the idea is pretty simple. instead of assigning random images or the same boring silhouette to every user, blobz generates playful svg avatars from a name, email, or any string you give it.
it's deterministic, meaning the same input always generates the same avatar. no need to store images, and there are over 4.9 billion possible combinations.
but the part i really wanted to get right was making it easy for other developers to use.
so i ended up building a few ways to integrate it:
- shadcn components: ready-to-use avatar components, along with things like avatar groups, profile cards, and user lists. you can drop them straight into your project using the shadcn cli. if you're already using shadcn avatars, then you just have to change two lines, one for the import and one for entering the name.
-
react package: if you'd rather handle things yourself, there's
@blobz/react, which generates the avatars directly in your app without relying on an external service. - hosted api: if you're not using react or just want avatar urls, there's an optional hosted api for that too.
the library and components are free and open source under the mit license.
github: https://github.com/lirena00/blobz
playground: https://blobz.lirena.in
would love to hear what you think of it! and if you find it useful for something you're building, that'd be pretty cool too :)
