How to use pagination.php to change next/prev arrows

Those strings are used when you opt for the simple pagination:

// example from the docs
$someUsers = User::where('votes', '>', 100)->simplePaginate(15);

take a look at: [ http://laravel.com/docs/5.0/pagination ].

If you opt for the ->paginate() method, those strings are not going to be used.

So i'd have to make a custom paginator just to change the arrow style for the normal paginator?

Probably, actually you can write a custom Presenter for pagination. Take a look at this answer in SO [ http://stackoverflow.com/a/28542607/1211472 ] (last answer)

Here is step by step guide of php pagination with search filter. https://www.johnpatel.com/pagination-in-php-function-search-filter/