Icons For Your Desktop and Icons For Your Web Designs
The value of icons lies in their ability to communicate with visitors or users in a more intuitive and effective way. Jakob Nielsen, the maestro of usability, postulated few years ago that “recognition rather than recall” is one of the basic heuristics for user-friendly design. In fact, it’s necessary to “minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.”
Icons are supposed to achieve just that. And this is why it’s useful to actually use them both on your desktop and in your web design. They can reduce the complexity of the design and make it easier to get from point A to point B.
In the overview below we present some of the fresh high-quality free icons which you can use for your desktop; we also showcase free professional icon sets, buttons and vector graphics you can use for your web designs. You might know some of them, but hopefully not all of them. Not all listed freebies can be used for commercial projects, however you can use all of them in your private projects of for you personal purposes. Please read the disclaimers carefully before using the icons – they’re changing from time to time.
You can also scan through the icons-related articles we’ve published before:
- Symbols, Buttons and Icons For Free
- More Symbols, Buttons and Icons
- Freebies Round-Up: Icons, Buttons and Templates
Icons for Your Desktop and Design
Air Mail Icons
A replacement icon for Apple Mail or any other Mail application. An old school Air Mail Envelope for that ‘old worldish’ quality that seems to have been forgotten in our inbox filled, electronicly busy everyday lives. 32x32px – 512×512 px icon for Mac and PC.
Camera Icon
Replacement icon for Iphoto, Aperture or any other photo application. 2 icons included: a colorful lens for the frivolous and a sligthly more down to earth version. Mac & PC icons + PNG’s bundled.
File Icons
Includes a total of 100 PNGs and 100 Icons.
iZ3 Icons
The package contains 20 different icons for Windows XP & Vista, 7 different colors, 256×256 Pixel PNG previews, 256×256 ico formats for XP & Vista.
iLeopard Icons Pack
Special edition of iLeopard Icons Pack series. All Leopard icons available in 512*512 pixels with 96 dpi.
White Leopard Icons, Black Leopard Icons
This icon set for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) contains 19 folder icons in both .icns- and .png-format (128×128 and 512x512px). Every folder icon (such as applications, music, movies etc.) will be replaced by adding these icons to your system.
Vista Style Ultimate IconPackager
Includes new gray folders, updated Vista Sounds, and also new file icons. 19.7 Mb.
Safari Icon
This is a Pith Helmet for a real Safari user! Leopard ready, Jungle ready!
BlackAqua Safari Icon
Icns, png and ico – max 256x256px.
Camino Icons
A few icons for the Mac OSX super browser Camino, 5 colors and a retro look for your favorite browser.
Hardwaremx
7 icons in various sizes. For Mac and Windows.
Square Compass
128px, 256px and 512px in .png.
iTweek’s icon sets
A small selection of nice icon sets, among them the Skype icon, Ipod Nano and the Graphic Converter.
Apple Various Pack
A number of Apple icons bundled in a one single package.
Web Design Icons
Email Me Icons
This icon set contains 11 icons in sizes 32×32 px, 48x48px, 128x128px, in .png format.
Jonas Rask’s Icons
Over 20 outstanding free icon sets for Win and Mac.
Rounder Icons
43 rounded 128×128 .png-icons.
Aesthetica Icon Set
“Aesthetica” Icon Set was created to lend visual excitement to your projects. This set is fresh, stylish and modern, all mixed up in the perfect proportions. This set contains the following icons in 32-bit transparency PNG and Photoshop’s PSD.
Orb Icon Set
Inspirational icons.
WYSIWYG Sapphire Icons
This icon set, as the name indicates, can find its use wherever you might need WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing or similar actions in your applications. The WYSIWYG Sapphire Icon Set is a part of the DryIcons’ WYSIWYG sequence icon sets, the name is inspired by its specific tone colors giving it an unique ‘sapphire’ look.
Iconbase’s selection
A growing selection of high quality icons for Windows and/or Mac.
Project Folders pack
Project Folders Icons Pack set includes 4 PNG icons for Windows (XP and Vista).
Free RSS Feed Icons
We’ve covered dozens of RSS-Icons sets recently, however there are some sets we’ve missed. This one comes in 6 colors
More social icons
12 icons. PNG. Spanish.
51 RSS Button For Your Blog
Even more RSS-buttons & icons.
Social Bookmarks Iconset 2
This set includes icons for Furl, Windows live, Blinklist, Blogger, Lifelogger etc. All icons are sized to 64*64 in PNG format and it’s great to use them on your website or blog.
Social Web Buttons – Set 1
20 Buttons released under a Creative Commons License
Ganato Free Icons
Free PSD Icons (24 icon sets), among them a home set, plugin set, monitor set, application set, chart set and many more.
Web 2.0 Vector Icons-1 and Web 2.0 Vector Icons-2
Vector icons in one single .EPS-file. Very unfriendly download via rapidshare or depositfiles. these services are annoying.
Free Icons for Web & Application Interface Systems
140 PNG all free Icons. Icons come in 4 sizes. Here is a preview. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
20 Free Sunny Buttons
There is also a .PSD source.
Blog-Micro-Buttons
80×15 pixels in 2 styles.
Pixelicious
150 icons mainly intended for developers. 32×32 pixel. Free for personal use or non profit organisations.
Overall 400 mini icons (10×10 and 16×16) are available in the set of Set von Dapino. The icons can be used royalty-free by Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license for any personal or commercial projects. PNG format.
Firefox Icons Packs
A collection of icons related to various Firefox-project. In most cases the quality is much better than you might think at the first glance. Experimental designs are also available.
Ben has some free vector musical instruments.
The same theme from Spoon Graphics: Live Music.
Some clouds. Look out for more stuff.
40 Vector Icons for Apple Products
So here is something to keep you ticking over: a sample of vector icons of all your favourite (or perhaps most hated) Apple products, from iPods and iPhone to iMacs and the Apple Remote.
Dancing Girls
Vector silhouettes of dancing ladies (*.eps).
Random Free Vectors – Part 13: Stars
EPS or SVG from Bittbox.
Paper Doc Icons
11 paper doc .icon & transparent .png 128 x 128 px
Leopard Dock Designs
Download your Apple Leopard dock design. There are 110+ design at this time on one singel page.
Dockulicious
Tired of the regular Mac OS 10.5 Leopard dock?
References
You can find even more free icons in the
- IconShock.com Freebies
A free icons forum where users share their findings and works.
V1
November 29th, 2007 9:34 pmLooking hot ^_^
Evandro Guedes
November 29th, 2007 9:47 pmGreat resource!!
Anthony
November 29th, 2007 10:19 pmI loves me some icons!
Eds
November 29th, 2007 10:43 pmNice! Thanks!
Ian N
November 29th, 2007 10:48 pmGod, I love Smashing Mag. :)
Kyle Johnson
November 29th, 2007 10:54 pmWow, really nice collection!
Juan Manuel Lemus
November 29th, 2007 11:00 pmVery cool collection. But, don’t forget everaldo :)
Nytryk
November 29th, 2007 11:01 pmWoW :-O Another Smash :-)
Sven Kaiser
November 29th, 2007 11:13 pmBeautiful list – thanks alot :-)
Zhonk
November 29th, 2007 11:17 pmvery cool collection, well done sm :)
Charlie Park
November 30th, 2007 12:02 amThe icons you’ve listed are certainly pretty, but if your goal is usability, they’re not necessarily the best way to go.
Jef Raskin noted: Icons contribute to [the] visual attractiveness of an interface and, under the appropriate circumstances, can contribute to clarity; however, the failings of icons have become clearer with time. … Instead of icons explaining, we have found that icons often require explanation. If you wanted to obscure or to encode an idea to keep it from prying eyes, substituting icons for the words might not be a bad start.”
He continues: “In every study that considered the question, icons were demonstrated to be more difficult to understand than were labels, especially at first viewing, which contradicts one of the most frequently cited reasons for using icons, namely, comprehensibility for beginners.”
I’m not saying the pictures that you show in this post aren’t pretty. They’re gorgeous. But it does a disservice to both designers and to users to promote icons as a means of “minimizing the user’s memory load.” In fact, icons only serve to increase it.
manish
November 30th, 2007 12:42 amur blog is excellent …. each and every blog is very informative.. a must read for developers.
hts
November 30th, 2007 12:45 amGreat sets of icons…I’ll use some of them to change the interface of my old WinXP. Thanks!
Michael Flarup
November 30th, 2007 1:40 amYay, alot of my icon work from pixelresort.com featured in this post. What a great way to start off the weekend early. Should be fun to watch the traffic boost. =)
Thanks for featuring my work again SM!
Design Bliss
November 30th, 2007 1:52 amA note of caution about that “Dancing Girls” set above. That site posts stuff stolen off of iStockphoto and other places.
Danny Outlaw
November 30th, 2007 2:50 amI love icons. They are like little pieces of candy. So much fun!
Fraisouille
November 30th, 2007 2:59 amHey, looks like you have forgotten famfamfam icons …
http://www.famfamfam.com/
Great pack of free web icons !!
Adam Bard
November 30th, 2007 3:13 amRegarding Charlie Park above, I think it could be said that icons can make matters easier for the user. Specifically, standard icons — such as the RSS icon in its various incarnations — impart meaningful information to those users familiar with them, without cluttering the page with superfluous information. If I go to a page such as this one, and decide I want the feed, I look for that icon.
Arbitrary icons ought to be treated as eye candy, but standardized ones can improve the user experience.
Robert
November 30th, 2007 3:54 amMost of them are not for commercial use – sadly. On my blog I posted a list of 33+ resources of icons free for commercial use – perhaps you find it useful. Apart of that the work you presented is very “eyecandy”. Thank you for the inspiring list.
Thomas
November 30th, 2007 4:39 amFound that on recently on DeviantArt and love it in Combination with mozillas Prism application to use as my Icon for the google Reader… Check it out.
T.
ptamaro
November 30th, 2007 4:53 amNice collection! Thanks as always for sharing the love…
Troy
November 30th, 2007 5:52 amWhere’s the silk icon set? Those are by far the best!
http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
Jelmer
November 30th, 2007 6:07 amYeah I definitely agree with Troy! The silk icons set is awesome, has lots of icons and is free as well. I’ve seen it on a lot of websites and it should be included in this list!
Pierre
November 30th, 2007 6:24 amGreat collection! Thanks
Rene
November 30th, 2007 6:39 amMind that the rapidshare hosted ‘Web 2.0′ vectors/ icons are not free and the author of the site hosting it is not the owner!
Yo
November 30th, 2007 8:07 amI think this sources are ILLEGAL
http://dezignus.com/dancing-girls/
http://garcya.us/blog/90-free-vector-icons-set/
Correct me if i’m wrong!
Leo
November 30th, 2007 11:12 amHow about some cute Christmas icons?
Thought-Blender
November 30th, 2007 11:49 amNice. Many Thanks.
KJ
November 30th, 2007 2:11 pmThoroughly impressive!
Rubin
November 30th, 2007 2:27 pmYet another great resource for web design. Definetly will become useful.
bmunch
November 30th, 2007 2:40 pmI am always impressed by the quality of a SM list, but I am particularly impressed by the depth and breath of their list. Anytime, they choose a topic for a list, you won’t be able to compete with you list. Its just impossible.
Shrinivas
November 30th, 2007 2:41 pmgr888888 Thanks
Mohsin
November 30th, 2007 3:07 pm..Or simply visit deviantART icons gallery.
Matt Davey
November 30th, 2007 4:29 pmhttp://www.leoparddocks.net we have some docks as well. Loving this post you can never have too many Icons
Andreas
November 30th, 2007 6:10 pmHmm, isn’t the Angular Iconset a commercial product from Yellow Icon? They sell it for $249:
http://www.yellowicon.com/stockicon/view/11/angular_stock_icons
Hubbers
November 30th, 2007 6:26 pmThe problem is to get these into your curtrent site with out looking like that were added at the last minute after everything else was designed.
Evangelist
November 30th, 2007 6:43 pmGreat list again…
Alessandro
November 30th, 2007 8:35 pmsome really gorgeous!
Mr. Kowalsky
December 1st, 2007 5:41 amAnother great list, again. This is a must-read for any developer our there!
I felt good about myself when I found two icons sets on this list from dryicons.com because I just used their Aesthetica set on one of my back-end applications. It really is a great icons set and I love how they turned out on my application.
Keep up the good work guys.
Marco Nuñez
December 1st, 2007 6:28 amGoooo.. thisis is excelent…
Very good input
Bobbi
December 1st, 2007 8:49 amFnx! Nice icons!
Nikko
December 1st, 2007 2:29 pmVery good….Great list and cool …thanks friends ^_^
pankrti
December 1st, 2007 2:56 pmGreat list! I wonder how do you find all these great ideas? Especially the “dancing ladies” in vectors…
Mark Fulton
December 2nd, 2007 1:01 amVery cool. I would have to say IconBuffet.com is one of the best resources for free icon sets. Pick and choose a handful of premium quality sets to be delivered to you each month.
Cheers, Mark Fulton
Logesh
December 2nd, 2007 1:59 amI liked to have a Black Coloured dark RSS icon. But i got disappointed :(
Colurz
December 2nd, 2007 5:27 amThank you for this great collection of Icons! Great List!
Nedim Sabic
December 2nd, 2007 3:06 pmThank you very much, I will use it for redisigning
Pourlagloire
December 3rd, 2007 12:44 amSmashing Mag still on top of them all. Great !
Stanly
December 3rd, 2007 4:16 amHello my friend. Can you change “Dancing girls” link to new set of photoshop shapes? – http://dezignus.com/silhouettes-megaset/
Because new set include that girls, and much… much more other silhouettes ;)
asterix
December 4th, 2007 1:52 amAngular: 90 Free Icons
aakash
December 4th, 2007 11:03 amsome icons (3D) you can find here also!!!
akkasone
OverZero.it
December 5th, 2007 5:40 pmGREAT Work guys! Keep it up!
Jean-Marc Fontaine
December 5th, 2007 6:40 pmThe licence is “Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Netherlands” which means that comemrcial uses are prohibited.
Deepak
December 6th, 2007 5:03 pmBea-uti-ful…Smash,mash,clash,gmash… What a shot…
Shuklendu
December 7th, 2007 6:53 pmSuuuuuuuuuuperb Collection
Ravi
December 8th, 2007 8:19 pmreally useful! some slick icons found here
Christian
December 9th, 2007 1:57 amhttp://garcya.us/blog/90-free-vector-icons-set/ is not longer valid.
Tino
December 10th, 2007 7:06 pmOnce again thanks for sharing these great icons. :-)
Shycon Design
December 11th, 2007 2:13 amGlorious post! Bookmarked for later
Dapo
December 12th, 2007 2:22 amThanks 4 these awesome icons.
Where can I get tutorials to make icons like these(esp.the mac style – they look so real!)?
Dapo
December 12th, 2007 2:37 amwhere can I get tutorials to make icons like these – especially those real looking mac ones
David Mackey
December 14th, 2007 11:36 amYou guys put out beautiful posts! I’ve added this article’s link
David
December 14th, 2007 3:40 pmnice packs! thanks for this…!
Devin Jang
December 17th, 2007 3:46 pmCoooooooool~~~~~!!!! Thanks!! :)
Valentina Olini
December 18th, 2007 6:07 amOh my God are wonderful!!!!! thank you smashingmagazine!!
Max
December 18th, 2007 5:14 pmGreat Compilation. Regards :)
kade
January 8th, 2008 2:40 pmis there a way to get the above icons in vector format?
mento
January 14th, 2008 4:48 amexcellent collection of icons!
missed the mnimal iconset http://sryo.deviantart.com/art/minimal-icons-1-8-6-18808605
Letsdown
January 20th, 2008 12:51 pmThis is a nice collection .Thank you
PiticStyle
January 23rd, 2008 3:46 amThe best resource from the internet. Thank you!
Stephen Bird
January 24th, 2008 7:23 amSweat graphic sets, well pleased.
http://www.bubbila.com
Dolapo Taiwo
March 5th, 2008 3:19 amThanks for the icons. They are really useful. Unotech media – Web design Nigeria
John
March 7th, 2008 5:42 amAwesome resources.
Thank you.
Icons
March 18th, 2008 5:23 amGreat icons resources, Can you add my free icons site to your list
http://www.freeiconsdownload.com
komik
March 19th, 2008 7:08 amthank you for icon ;)
Shirley Kaiser
March 19th, 2008 9:28 pmImportant for Vitaly and Sven:
Your link to: Angular: 90 Free Icons is to a site that is giving away these icons and breaking copyright laws. These beautiful icons are actually a stock icon set created by Yellow Icon Design: Angular Stock Icons. Yellow Icon Design sells them as part of their Stock Icons products.
I personally contacted Yellow Icon Design today by email (March 19, 2008) and they quickly confirmed this information. Why did I do all this? Via my websitetips.com site’s Commercial, Free Web Icons section I’d also unknowingly linked to the pirated icons at the same blog that you’re listing as of this comment. BUT I found a blog post this morning that told of this pirated icons situation: 90 Free High Quality Vector Icons Set So I emailed Yellow Icon Design and they personally confirmed, as I mentioned above. Feel free to contact them yourself, of course, to confirm all this, of course!
I do hope you will either remove that listing or replace the link with the CORRECT link to the rightful creator of these gorgeous icons.
Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz
March 20th, 2008 10:21 am@Shirley: thank you, we appreciate your efforts. The link was removed.
Prabhakaran.G
March 21st, 2008 3:54 amDownload Pixel Icons in 5 Variant Colors for free http://www.thelfs.com/user%20interface/icon_download.html
If you face any problem in downloading shoot an message in the contact page.
Thanks,
Have a nice day!
Prabhakaran.G
WebFusion
April 21st, 2008 6:56 pmGreat collection!UPDATE: the Jonas Rask’s Icons link is no longer available. That’s the new link: http://www.jonasraskdesign.com/
Daniel
May 27th, 2008 12:15 pmAwensome, thanx!
Simple Station
June 29th, 2008 8:28 amThanks for the great web icons guys.
basmanyak
August 18th, 2008 7:54 amvery nice icons..
hoca
October 3rd, 2008 7:58 amThanks for the great web icon links.
http://www.hoca.com
web
October 8th, 2008 5:56 amlovely icons for website designers
fatih
November 11th, 2008 11:54 pmçok teşekkür ederim işime çok yaradı.
I am Turkısh..
Margot Harrison
November 12th, 2008 12:43 pmxnbvgpcu9uri7yam
シンボルフォントを活用しよう
Hendrik
December 20th, 2008 11:24 amThank you very much for the awesome icons!
Freeblog
January 11th, 2009 12:21 amThis is a fine collection of Icons I have been looking alot lately consider this page Book marked
Kind Regards
Bill007
Oh By the way the Web is made so much Better with people Like you
Obama09
January 19th, 2009 1:19 amnice, very nice!
Paul
February 9th, 2009 7:21 pm想要一套比较全的绿色系的。。
：（
seyed mahdi hoseini
February 11th, 2009 11:00 pmman ke bavaram nemishe .
Anonymous
February 19th, 2009 4:35 amOMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How’d you find theeeeeeeeesssssssseeeeeee?!?!?!?!?!?? BEAUTIFULLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Marilou Castillo
March 12th, 2009 7:22 amI was disappointed to see that the iLeopard Icons Pack doesn’t have a link to it…
Imran
March 15th, 2009 9:44 pmGreat resource!!
james smith
April 16th, 2009 12:19 amfound these the other day , I like carbon stuff
http://graphicriver.net/item/carbon-fibre-icons/36497
klaus
July 15th, 2009 12:53 pmsenioren brauche hilfe treppenlifte
rox
August 25th, 2009 11:20 am” out standing “
Mari
October 1st, 2009 7:46 pmThe link for the yellowicon sets has changed. They are now here: http://yellowicon.com/downloads/
Oh and the sunny pack with the PSD is a dead link: http://www.flying-people.com/2007/10/10/20-free-sunny-buttons/
nashe
October 8th, 2009 5:26 pmThere`s no link for the camera icon :(
Jeanny
February 4th, 2010 10:53 pmApple Various Pack no longer available :_(