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User-friendly icon sets are always nice to look at and useful to have ready to hand. Since effective designers guide their users’ attention using visuals, icons can (and probably should) be used in almost every project you are or will be working on. Whether for an illustration, sketch, site or weblog – used moderately, icons can point users’ attention to the key-aspects of an article or specific site sections and communicate the message of the site in a more effective way.

This is why web designers need them. And this is why we look for them. Regularly.

Let’s take a look at over 20 free, beautiful and fresh icon sets as well as references to further free icon libraries. Some of the sets can be used for free only for private projects, however most of them can also be used in commercial projects. In both cases – before using icon sets please read the license agreement carefully; it can change from time to time.

• You can find over 25 further free icon sets in our previous article Freebies Round-Up: Icons, Buttons and Templates.

20+ Free And Fresh Icon Sets

iPhoneSketch (FastIcon): 4 free icons of iPhone, designed in scribbled style, for Linux, Mac OS and Windows. The FastIcon-agreement permits you to use the icons in printed materials, commercial projects, software application, websites, blogs, designs, themes or GUI. However, the author requires an operable link to the source.

iPhone icons (FastIcon): Browser, calendar, calculator, chat, clock, graphics, iPod, e-Mail, map, notes, phone, photo, sms, tools, wallpapers, weather.

Smiley Development Kit: available in .psd (Adobe Photoshop) format.

Flag Button Development Kit: it’s basically a Photoshop file with placeholders. To create a new button, just duplicate a layer group and paste the new flag into the respective layer. It’s as simple as that.

YellowIcon Crystal Set (1500 icons, 22 Mb) and dozens of further icon sets. Sizes: 128×128, 16×16, 22×22, 32×32, 48×48 and 64×64. By Everaldo Coelho.

OpenPhone Pack contains 12 high quality (256×256 pixels) icons; PNG and ICO formats. Licensed under GNU Public License.

Social Bookmark Iconset

Mac OS Boxes: realistic looking white boxes (Mac OS only). Free for personal use.

iPod Shuffle (FastIcon): iPod Shuffle Dock, iPod shuffle headphone. You can find a dozen of further icon sets on Fasticon.com.

Iconshock’s Icon Sets (7 icon sets) include Consoles Vista icons, Red Hot Chili Icons, Elm Nightmare Street Icons, NBA Web Icons, Disk Jockey Icons, Filming Vista icons and more.

RSS Feed (Fasticon): designed in 3D-look.

Adobe CS 3 Icon Pack: nine 256×256 png icons

mAqua ChronoSync: free for personal use only.

Aqua Neue (Graphite): 86 icons, a new set of system replacement icons in Aqua style.

The iconset below includes 94 pieces and was designed by the graphic artist Jonas Rask from Denmark. The 32×32-icons can be downloaded in a .zip-archive as .ico, .png, .tiff, Mac Icons and Pixadex iContainer. These fancy and professional icons (some are certainly looking familar) can be used on commercial web-sites without any charge. You’ll find the download-link at the bottom of Jonas’ startpage. His download-page may present some other icon treasures – but in this case for private use only.

Feedicons is a 34-part iconset from Zeus Box Studio. You might be willing to use them to give your “subscribe to RSS-feed”-button a fresh look.These icons are, besides some inept exceptions, variations of the well-known original, which makes sense. You may download them in a 32*32 and 16*16 format as .png (.zip-archive). Released under the Creative Commons License.

Web 2 Social Bookmarks: 12 FastIcon-freeware “iPhone-like” icons of Web 2 Social Bookmarks for use in blogs, websites, on desktop and software. The Content: Blinklist, BlogMarks, Delicious, Digg, Feeds, Flickr, Furl, Magnolia, Newsvine, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Technorati. The Linux version includes .png files sized from 512×512 to 16×16 pixels.

Emoticon: 14 smileys-icons.

104 standard PC keyboard key icons: useful for video training projects.

Circle Feeds (FastIcon): 4 variations of Feeds Icon in circle shape, for Linux, Mac OS and Windows.

Further references

• PixelGirl Icon Sets
  467 icon sets for Mac OS X and 164 icon sets for Windows XP.
• IconKits Free Delivery
  As a Iconkits.com member you get access to the ForFree section with free stock icons you can use in both personal and commercial projects. When you sign up you will receive 2 points which means you can download 2 optional icon kits in the ForFree section.
• Icon Bee
  Collects gorgeous free icons. RSS feed is also available.
• Vistaicons.com
  is a collection of free Vista Style icon sets of over 2000 high quality icons in png and ico format.
• Simple System and Windows Icons: 84 + 65 freeware “desktop” icons.
  
• InterfaceLift Icons
  Literally thousands of icons sets – for free downoad for Mac OS, Linux and Windows.
• Free Icons Pack
  A collection of free icons collected from public domain resources. Available for free download as a .zip-file.