Ares Dark Icon Pack

In the world of Android customization, few things impact your daily user experience as profoundly as an icon pack. It is the face of your device, the interface you interact with hundreds of times a day. Among the sea of options on the Google Play Store, the Ares Dark Icon Pack by One4Studio has emerged as a standout contender for users seeking sophistication, consistency, and a premium dark aesthetic.

This article provides an exhaustive review of Ares Dark, exploring its design philosophy, feature set, installation procedures, and how it compares to its siblings in the Ares family. Whether you are a customization veteran or a newcomer looking to spruce up your home screen, this guide covers everything you need to know.

1. The Design Philosophy: Why Ares Dark Stands Out

The Power of the “Squircle”

The shape of an icon is its defining silhouette. While stock Android has flirted with circles (Pixel) and rounded squares (Samsung OneUI), the squircle—a mathematical intermediate between a square and a circle—is often regarded as the perfect compromise.

Ares Dark utilizes this shape to perfection. Unlike “shapeless” icon packs where icons follow the silhouette of the logo (leading to a jagged, uneven app drawer), Ares Dark forces uniformity. Every single app, from your dialer to that obscure utility app you installed three years ago, sits within the same cohesive container. This creates a sense of order and calm on your home screen that shapeless packs simply cannot match.

Aesthetics: Dark, Not Just Black

One of the most critical distinctions of Ares Dark is its color philosophy. Many “dark” packs simply slap a white logo on a pitch-black background (#000000) to chase AMOLED battery savings. While functional, this can sometimes look harsh or jarring.

Ares Dark takes a more refined approach. It uses a deep, dark grey background rather than pure black. This choice offers several advantages:

• Visual Softness: It reduces eye strain by lowering the contrast ratio slightly compared to pure black-on-white.
• Depth Perception: A dark grey background allows for subtle shadows and gradients that give the icon a sense of physicality and “pop” that flat black often masks.
• Color Harmony: The glyphs (the logos inside the box) are not just white; they are colorful. The dark grey canvas serves as a neutral stage that makes these colors vibrant without being neon-blinding. It retains the original brand identity of apps (Spotify is still green, Facebook is still blue) but mutes them slightly to fit a mature theme.

2. Key Features and Content

One4Studio is known for quality, but they are also known for quantity. An icon pack is useless if half your app drawer remains unthemed.

Massive Icon Library

As of early 2026, Ares Dark boasts a library of over 5,000+ icons. This coverage is significant. It ensures that not only are your popular social media and Google apps themed, but also regional apps, banking tools, and niche utilities. The developer, Vuk Andric, is renowned for his active update schedule, often pushing weekly or bi-weekly updates that add 20-50 new icons based on user requests.

Dynamic Calendar Support

A small but crucial detail for any premium pack is dynamic calendar support. Ares Dark includes dynamic icons for a wide variety of calendar apps (Google Calendar, Samsung Calendar, Business Calendar, etc.). This means the icon on your home screen changes daily to show the correct date, rather than displaying a static “31” forever.

Alternate Icons

Customization is about choice. Don’t like the standard colorful Instagram icon? Ares Dark provides alternatives. You can often find:

• Monochrome variants: For a stricter look.
• Different colors: To match a specific wallpaper palette.
• Legacy icons: Old logos for apps that have recently rebranded (e.g., the old Twitter bird vs. the new ‘X’).

Included Wallpapers and Widgets

The app isn’t just a bucket of PNG files; it’s a full dashboard. Inside, you will find a cloud-based gallery of 90+ high-resolution wallpapers. These are curated specifically to compliment the icons—expect abstract dark curves, low-poly landscapes, and minimal geometric patterns that ensure the icons remain legible.

Furthermore, the pack includes a selection of KWGT (Kustom Widget Maker) presets. While you need the KWGT Pro app to use them, having widgets designed by the same artist ensures your clock and weather widgets match your icons perfectly in font and style.

3. User Experience and The Dashboard

The user experience of the Ares Dark app itself is polished. It uses a standard but customized dashboard (likely based on Blueprint or CandyBar) that offers:

• Icon Search: Easily find icons by name to manually apply them.
• Icon Request Tool: A built-in system to scan your unthemed apps and generate a request email to the developer.
• License Check: Verifies your purchase to prevent piracy.
• Apply Section: A quick-action tab to apply the pack to supported launchers immediately.

The Request System: Free vs. Premium

Like most popular icon pack developers, One4Studio faces a backlog of thousands of requests. To manage this, they offer two tiers:

1. Free Requests: You can select a limited number of apps (usually 5-10) to request per update cycle. There is no guarantee when these will be added, as they are prioritized by popularity.
2. Premium Requests: A paid in-app purchase allows you to “skip the line.” These requests are guaranteed to be added in the very next update. This is an excellent feature for users who use niche apps that might otherwise never get themed.

4. Installation Guide

Installing an icon pack can be confusing for new Android users because it typically requires a “Launcher.” Here is how to get Ares Dark running on your device.

Method A: The Standard Method (Custom Launchers)

This is the preferred way to use Ares Dark, as it offers the most stability and features.

• Supported Launchers: Nova Launcher, Niagara Launcher, Lawnchair, Smart Launcher, Action Launcher, etc.

Steps:

1. Install a supported launcher (e.g., Nova Launcher).
2. Open the Ares Dark app.
3. Navigate to the Apply tab.
4. Tap on your launcher’s name (e.g., Nova).
5. Confirm the prompt. Your home screen and app drawer will instantly update.

Method B: The Samsung OneUI Method (No Launcher Required)

Samsung users often want to keep the stock OneUI Home launcher but still use custom icons. Historically, this was impossible without individual shortcut apps. However, thanks to Samsung’s Good Lock suite, you can now apply Ares Dark natively.

Requirements:

• Samsung Galaxy device running OneUI 4.0 or higher.
• Good Lock app (from Galaxy Store).
• Theme Park module (inside Good Lock).

Steps:

1. Download and install Ares Dark from the Play Store.
2. Open Good Lock and install the Theme Park module.
3. Open Theme Park and tap on the “Icon” tab at the bottom.
4. Tap the “Create New” button.
5. Tap the central “Iconpack” button.
6. Select Ares Dark from the list of installed packs.
7. Wait for it to load, then tap the Download/Save icon in the top right.
8. Name your theme (e.g., “Ares Setup”) and save it.
9. Once saved, tap on your new theme in the list and select Apply.

Note: This method is slightly more tedious than using Nova Launcher, but it retains all standard OneUI animations and navigation gestures perfectly.

5. Comparison: Ares Dark vs. The Competition

Ares Dark vs. Ares Black

One4Studio offers a sibling pack called Ares Black. The difference is subtle but vital for enthusiasts:

• Ares Black: Uses a #000000 (True Black) background. This is ideal for maximizing battery life on OLED screens as the pixels literally turn off. It offers the highest possible contrast.
• Ares Dark: Uses a Dark Grey background. As mentioned earlier, this is better for visual hierarchy. If you find high-contrast black/white themes hurtful to your eyes at night, Ares Dark is the superior choice.

Ares Dark vs. Generic Free Packs

You might ask, “Why pay $3.49 when free packs exist?”

• Consistency: Free packs often have broken update cycles. Ares Dark has been supported for years.
• Completeness: Free packs rarely cover more than the top 100 apps. Ares Dark covers 5,000+.
• Design Quality: Free packs often use automated scripts to “mask” unthemed icons, which looks blurry or awkward. One4Studio manually draws glyphs to ensure pixel-perfect alignment.

6. Pros and Cons

To provide a balanced view, here is a breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of Ares Dark.

Pros

• Aesthetic Unity: The squircle shape brings unparalleled order to a messy app drawer.
• Readability: The colorful glyphs make it easy to identify apps at a glance (unlike “Whicons” or purely white packs where you have to read the text).
• Developer Commitment: Vuk Andric is one of the most reliable developers in the scene. The pack doesn’t just get abandoned.
• Samsung Support: Full compatibility with Theme Park makes it a top choice for Galaxy users.
• Wallpapers: The included cloud wallpaper gallery is high-quality enough to be a standalone app.

Cons

• Price: At ~$3.49, it is on the higher end of the icon pack market. However, you are paying for ongoing maintenance.
• Paid Requests: While understandable, having to pay extra to guarantee an icon request can be frustrating for users who have already bought the premium app.
• Requires Setup: It is not “plug and play” for Pixel or default launcher users without extra tools (like Shortcut Maker or custom launchers), though this is a limitation of Android, not the pack itself.

7. Conclusion: Is It Worth It?

The Ares Dark Icon Pack is more than just a cosmetic upgrade; it is a quality-of-life improvement for your digital environment. By unifying your app icons into a consistent, elegant, and dark-themed squircle shape, it reduces visual clutter and makes using your phone a more pleasant experience.

While the price point is premium, the sheer volume of icons (5,000+), the inclusion of high-quality wallpapers, and the assurance of regular updates make it a sound investment for anyone who plans to keep their Android setup looking sharp for years to come. If you own a Samsung device or use a custom launcher like Nova, Ares Dark is arguably one of the best “dark mode” icon packs currently available on the Play Store.

For those who want the battery-saving benefits of OLED black without the harsh contrast, Ares Dark strikes the perfect balance between style, usability, and comfort.