20+ Free And Fresh Icon Sets
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.
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.
Mark Bloomfield
August 25th, 2007 12:37 amI’m finding a lot of use out of iconfinder.net. There sets are being constantly added to and the search feature helps me find just the right icon. You can also filter search results to just get the right size icon.
Graphite Revolver
August 25th, 2007 12:37 amI really like a lot of these icons, specifically the Mac OS box. It is really well done.
Juan Manuel Lemus
August 25th, 2007 12:37 amVery good icon sets. Personally, I think that Everaldo (from YellowIcon) is a very good designer. Other packs, too are good.
JJ.Ying
August 25th, 2007 12:43 amVery useful icons! cool!
Tony Green
August 25th, 2007 1:10 amI’m partial to famfamfam which has a nice set of 1000 free mini-icons and also a nice set of mini-icons with the flag of pretty much every country in the world.
Ramil
August 25th, 2007 1:23 amThis is what I can call a great list *thumbs up*
I also use iconlib.info to find some icons but I doubt the copyrights on it.
Steve Jones
August 25th, 2007 1:44 amI loved the Crystal set, but I wonder if it is really free? Can we just use them in our projects, or do we need to adhere to any license terms.
Cento
August 25th, 2007 2:01 amI love old set’s. It’s really fantastic
Martin Ringlein
August 25th, 2007 2:24 amThe Crystal set is for PERSONAL use only — which sucks because it is a great set.
Halid
August 25th, 2007 2:29 amWonderful ;) …
Thanks … Very Good Icon Sets…
Andy Gongea
August 25th, 2007 4:22 amVery nice set of icons.
But in my opinion these icons are desktop oriented.
All the new designs and layouts are very poor in icons.
I think that this pack is a very valuable one in DTP area and graphic design.
Sean O
August 25th, 2007 5:14 amSome great links, as usual, Smashing…
So who has a good link to free, quality, general-purpose favicons?
Freemind
August 25th, 2007 5:54 amThis is greate list, thanks!
ak
August 25th, 2007 6:17 amBoring. Get yourself a job, guys.
Razvan
August 25th, 2007 6:34 amGood stuff, just what I needed!
Robert
August 25th, 2007 8:05 amThe site I use for more exceptional icons is IconBuffet. They have sets from eclectic over queer to just beautiful. They are free for personal and commercial use and the community (to exchange icons) is fun.
Thiru
August 25th, 2007 11:33 amThat’s smashing good! I like the Smiley Development Kit more than anything else!
Alex Brola
August 25th, 2007 2:55 pmThe Adobe Creative Suite 3 icons are a rip-off of http://www.artofadambetts.com/weblog/?p=190, I believe.
malfed
August 25th, 2007 4:02 pmThat’s gorgeous!
Thanks
Andy
August 25th, 2007 5:45 pmGreat list as always, though I’m surprised the fantastic Silk icon pack from http://www.famfamfam.com didn’t get a mention. Cheers SM!
kalkan
August 25th, 2007 9:29 pmi was looking flights icons. i found more of them but ur icons r better than others.
ty so much
Zul Azman
August 25th, 2007 10:16 pmNice.. Thanks…
Dennis Plucinik
August 26th, 2007 12:29 amNasty icons. Great job.
Chuck
August 26th, 2007 1:00 amAnother nice surprise. You guys just keep delivering the goods.
These will definitely get a nice workout on my system and sites.
Shaon
August 26th, 2007 1:09 amWoW… Excellent Collection
DWHS
August 26th, 2007 1:42 amSome are great and free is great but I would like to see better samples and download links on some.
Peter
August 26th, 2007 3:48 amNice place to find icons is: http://guistyles.com/category/icons/
I found there many great icons.
JengoPop
August 26th, 2007 6:22 amWow. The Adobe icons rule. And so do the Web 2 social bookmarks. Where is the icon for pollicious.com that new social network polling website?
Brad
August 26th, 2007 6:55 ammost definitely some great stuff in here. Thanks.
inBITado
August 26th, 2007 10:22 amIm still being fan of the old school. What about make your own icons…
Vlad Gerasimov
August 26th, 2007 10:52 amHey, there are about 700 free icons at http://www.orangeicons.com too!
jane
August 26th, 2007 2:49 pmAnother great royalty free icon set http://www.guimods.com/august-iconset-royalty-free/
Connie
August 26th, 2007 6:50 pmWhy are you publishing this stupid I… icons?
Do we need such commercial stuff and hype?
I feel pested by this.
You are publishing commercial, marketing stuff and call it essential for webdesigners
I doubt that and I think you should refrain from that stupid hypes.
k.s.reddy
August 26th, 2007 7:20 pmExcellent Icon Sets. Great list
Thank You very much
g47o
August 27th, 2007 3:59 amexelente listado!!, gracias
Verne
August 27th, 2007 8:56 amI love the Adobe CS3 icon kit! The Web 2.0 ones are nice too, though I still think that no matter how you spin it, the del.icio.us logo is a lost cause.
Syed Balkhi
August 27th, 2007 11:07 amthis is just an amazing collection, personally i look around for more types of rss buttons, unique styles, which i found many here like circle ones and couple other new styles.
Good job done staff
SilverMaster
August 27th, 2007 1:10 pmAmazing collection, thanks for sharing :)
Brown Baron
August 27th, 2007 4:16 pmVery nice. I’m going to take my time and go through all of these heh. They all look great.
Carlos Eduardo
August 27th, 2007 8:48 pmWonderful collection!
Thank you for this nice links :)
flairpair
August 27th, 2007 9:55 pmAmazing collection, thanks! :)
Johnny Wong
August 29th, 2007 6:17 amadd to my favories
ZERO
August 29th, 2007 11:41 pmSweet, I’m definitely gonna be using some of these in upcoming projects.
I was also pretty surprised at the absence of the famfamfam.com silk icons. Those are the bomb.
Shaon
August 30th, 2007 5:02 pmAmazing!!! Thanks guy for sharing…
SA Dude
August 31st, 2007 8:12 pmThis is an awesome icon list. I have killed the Tango ico’s so many times it’s nice to have a fresh new set to play with.
Dan
October 3rd, 2007 1:51 amIconBuffet is more than just a place to get free Icons. It’s the Icon trading ‘game’! Every month you get 10 free tokens (or get 30 for $6 a month) which you can use to get any of the 120+ sets of icons from other IconBuffet members, via Trading! Sets cost from 1 token, for the bronze, to 10 tokens for the single Diamond set! Also, once or twice a month token-free sets are given to everyone, but no one is given all the new sets, so there is always new stuff to trade with. You can download all the icons you get, or you can just download the ones you know you’ll use (recommended). Either way, it’s a blast!
Enjoy!
Neoluk
October 25th, 2007 4:43 pmHey man, thanks a lot for this list. it is always difficult to find good icons around.
Fust
October 30th, 2007 8:10 pmI very much agree with the last comment, I had a hard time finding good icons when working on one of my latest projects. But I found this dryicons.com web site, and I think they had a couple icon sets with over 100 icons each. The best part is, they are giving the icons for free! These icons are available in 32-bit PNG and also PSD, and they come in these sizes: 16 x 16px; 24 x 24px; 32 x 32px; 48 x 48px and 128 x 128px .
Cheers!
codeart
November 1st, 2007 2:24 amHey Fust, great site. Thanks a lot man, they really got some good stuff there for free :)
Thomas R. Stegelmann
November 11th, 2007 12:47 pmDoes anybody got a copy of FastIcon? Unfortunately, the website is currently not available.
lassodeveloper
November 29th, 2007 6:24 amVery nice! Thanks for the sets..
Jeetlo
December 6th, 2007 2:26 pmThanks for such good stuff!
Rob
December 7th, 2007 10:57 pmfound another great Mini icons page LINK [http://icons.primail.ch] currently adding tiny mini world flags, really neat
Michael Hendrickx
January 21st, 2008 3:50 amNice set of icons, even in the comments!
Bubbila
January 24th, 2008 10:26 amSweat graphic sets, well pleased.
Kurt Geer
January 25th, 2008 3:27 pmExcellent, Excellent links
Jason
February 2nd, 2008 4:50 pmExcelent icons! I was looking for some new social bookmark icons and found these. Thanks!
Suhreed Sarkar
March 6th, 2008 10:41 pmexcellent post. very good icon sets. will be useful for programmers who designs!
John
March 7th, 2008 5:45 amExcellent icon resources!
Thank you
Chad
April 13th, 2008 9:20 amThese are gorgeous!
Kaustav Guha
April 17th, 2008 4:30 amHi….Just wanted to know if these icons are totally free? Can I use them for templates? I found that some of these sets are fully free for any kind of use… could you please let me know which are the sets that I can use for templates?
JD
May 14th, 2008 11:28 amNice icon set thanks
shadowman
May 21st, 2008 12:35 amthis thing sucks! Just kidding :D
GREAT WORK! Just keep it comin’
automatic_ab
May 23rd, 2008 10:54 amThis is gr8! I love SM. You guys are truly a wonder weapon in my design arsenal. Thank you again so much!
e7art
September 9th, 2008 11:17 pmwooo,thank you !
about japanese Onsen Icon in here : e7art creative icon-japan (only picture)
R.Saravanakumar
September 29th, 2008 5:15 amIts Wonderfull i like it
Joe Preston
October 15th, 2008 1:23 pmHere’s a great free set that I found.
http://momentumdesignlab.com/icons/index.php
CraZy675
October 17th, 2008 11:32 amthe link:
http://jonas.seph.ws/index.html
is 404ing
Clifford
January 12th, 2009 5:27 amThanks, Great Collection
John
January 30th, 2009 12:50 pmvery nice icons!
פורומים
SRobert
March 17th, 2009 7:56 amA very good collection of icons. You can see a lot of good ideas and techniques.
Marcin
March 17th, 2009 4:14 pmNice icon. Thanks
Marzanna
March 22nd, 2009 1:20 pmExcellent Collection. I was looking for some new social bookmark icons and found these.
Thanks.
Jimmy
April 22nd, 2009 8:37 pmThank you.
Very Good icon cool!
Irfan
April 28th, 2009 7:12 pmthanks, Great Icon sets
Johnson Katti
September 16th, 2009 12:48 amVery useful icons! cool!
Bria82
December 17th, 2009 1:33 pmThis free flag set is quite impressive (256x256px): http://www.nordicfactory.com/creative/illustrations/download-free-flag-set-in-png/
pung
January 30th, 2010 3:31 amThanks a lot for this great collection
kenntrix
February 1st, 2010 12:10 amgreat.. thanks for this collection. big help.
shiwa
February 15th, 2010 8:41 pmit’s nice thank your for your icon sets
Tommy
May 26th, 2010 7:03 amLove this site thanks again!
Nesrine
June 1st, 2010 10:32 amHello, Thanks for the great icons, and I do like Star_disabled
Akku
September 20th, 2010 2:29 amit’s nice thank your for your icon sets
Minol D Fernando
October 10th, 2010 1:54 amI would be really thank full,,,, Very Nice
ganesh
October 21st, 2010 12:59 amit realy very use full icons thanks..
Ravi Kiran
August 28th, 2011 11:58 pmGood icons found.. thank u
Regards.
Edison
April 15th, 2013 5:11 pmThank you. These icons allow me to focus on the html structure and css of my projects without being distracted by the graphics creation.