iii. About the Cover

While Flutter’s official mascot is the hummingbird — meant to represent the speed of the Dart language and the swiftness of building apps with the Flutter framework – we were drawn to the expressive and transformative elegance of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) for our cover.

In cultures all over the world for thousands of years, butterflies have been seen as a symbol of mysterious transformation: The caterpillar wraps itself in silk and emerges with wings, its original simple form now completely native to the body of a butterfly.

That’s also the magical power of Flutter — wrap your project in the framework’s widgets and out comes something that appears endemic to iOS or Android ecosystems from the same codebase.

The monarch butterfly is, of course, most famously known for its unfathomable North American migration from Canada and the Northern United States to Mexico. Fluttering for thousands of miles at just 5.5 miles/hour (8.85 km/hour for our global friends), it isn’t just one butterfly making the journey at all. It takes three generations of monarchs to make the complete migration: Those born in spring and early summer live just 28-32 days, and those born in late summer live up to 8 months to return home.

Luckily, your own journey will not be so long or perilous! We hope that our book gives you all the tools you need to migrate your own projects with ease and help you make beautiful apps that take flight.