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40 Professional Icon Sets For Free Download
May 21st, 2008 in Graphics | 185 Comments
When it comes to icons, web designers and graphic artists have an excellent opportunity to showcase their craft, prove their experience and explore their creativity. A sweet, nice icon set is a perfect showcase of designer’s work and a powerful instrument to build up your reputation online. In fact, designers make use of it, creating absolutely amazing icon sets and offering them for free download.
However, designing a high-quality icon set isn’t an easy task. It takes time, patience and resources and it requires professional skills and experience. We are regularly looking for talented artists and creative designers and we are happy to support them as much as possible — e.g. by showcasing their work in our magazine. If you are going to create an icon set and experience any problems releasing it or spreading the word — let us know, we may figure something out.
In the overview below we present 40 excellent, free and professional icons for desktop and web design. Some of them can be used for both private and commercial projects. You may always use them for fre in your private projects. Nevertheless, it is always worth to take a look at the license agreements — they can change from time to time.
You can also scan through the icons-related articles we’ve published before:
- 35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets
to spice up your posts with some nice illustrations or enrich your desktop with outstanding dock icons, - Icons For Your Desktop and Icons For Your Web Designs
with 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, - 20 Free And Fresh Icon Sets
with over 20 free, beautiful and fresh icon sets as well as references to further free icon libraries, - Freebies Round-Up: Icons, Buttons and Templates
with fresh high quality icons, buttons, vector graphics, templates and layouts.
This time you’ll find quite many tasty snacks. Literally.
Free Icons For Your Web Designs
Office Space Icon Set
This set contains a coffee icon, chair icon, employee icon, coffee machine icon, computer display icon and information kiosk icon. Each icon is available in size 16×16px, 32×32px, 48×48px and 256×256px. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. This means that if you use the icons on your web site, please place a link to www.visualpharm.com on the same pages the icons are used.
Light Icons Set
A set of 22 light, clean and stylish icons created by Krzystof Kolatorski from Poland.
Transport Icon Set
This set of ready-made icons represents 35 objects of various modern transport facilities such as Cars, Airplanes, Helicopters, Trucks, Public conveyances, Squad car, Fire-engine, Ambulance, Taxi, Ships, etc. Free for personal use. .png, .ico. 16×16, 24×24, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 128×128, 256×256.
Old School Icon Pack
Old School Icon Pack contains 82 high quality (256×256 pixels) icons; PNG and ICO formats. This package includes: Extra Icons, File Icons, Folder Icons, Hardware Icons, Software Icons etc. Free for personal use only.
The Simpsons Icons
11 Simpsons icons for Mac OS X and Windows. Designed by Anton Gerasimenko and Egor Zhgun from Russia. The link for the windows-version seems to be broken. Size: 128×128px.
Rss icons campaign
A large set of creative RSS icons designed by Design Freak.
Ice Cream Icons
A set of 15 sweet, shiny and tasty ice and cake icons. Size: 128×128, formats: .ico and .png. Designed by dim.po.
Ruby on Rails icon pack
Contains 3 color variations of the Ruby on Rails folder icon in 5 different sizes. Also includes a squared version of Rails logo in 5 different sizes.
Set of Stylized Icons
Designed by Lucas (aka pho3nix-bf) from Poland. The YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook icon may be used in online-projects.
Sticker Pack
A pack of stick-on icons whicih contains 41 individual sticky icons with large resources for Vista & Leopard. Designed by David Lanham. iContainer, Mac, Win.
128×128: Toast It!
A toaster icon, 128×128px.
Icon Goodies
7 free icon goodies created by created by Chris Ivarson. Mac only. For instace, the Blogs icon pack includes Blogger icon, Livejournal icon, Wordpress icon and Xanga icon. Free to use.
Smashing RSS/Feed Icons
A free Smashing RSS/Feed icon set. The set contains 8 icons which you can use for private and commercial projects, blogs and web-sites for free. The icons are available for both Mac and Win-users in resolutions 16×16px, 24×24px, 32×32px, 48×48px, 128×128px, 256×256px and 512×512px.
Bright! icon set
Bright! is a crisp, sharp and beautiful set of 148 hand-crafted icons in vector format, ideally for both web and print work. You can use Bright! for personal and commercial projects at free of charge. Comments and backlinks are appreciated.
Freaky Crema
Cake and ice cream icons designed by dim.po from Russia. Crema Badges are also available for free download.
Build Your Own Box Kit
“Build Your Own Box” kit allows you to take a layered, Photoshop PSD file and add your own items inside. Logos, icons, anything. Some free icons are included in the PSD file as well. A How-To-Video (Quicktime) explains how you can create your icons using the .psd-file.
Nicely Stuffed
Six Colors + Leopard Ready. Designed by Max Gilchuk from Canada.
Antares Icon Pack
Antares Complete Pack contains 100 high quality (256×256 pixels) icons; PNG and ICO formats. This package includes: Blue Ray Disk icon, CD Drive icon, iMac OSX icon, iMac icon, Finder icon, Mail icon, Safari icon, iTunes icon, Trash icon, Dashboard icon etc. File Types: .ico, .png. Icon Sizes: 256×256, 128×128, 16×16, 32×32, 48×48.
Laurent Baumann | Icons
The Film Roll icon set contains 1 icon in sizes 16×16px, 32×32px, 48×48px, 128×128px, 256×256px and 512×512px. Formats: icns and .png. These icons are released under Creative Commons License. Designed by Laurent Baumann.
Pool Icons
Do you have snow in winter? We do. A lot of snow. But now spring has finally come and we can’t ignore it. We’ve been waiting for so long! So here is a free icon set about what we see in the streets in spring. You can download Win and Mac icons as well as PNG files.
Coffee Break Icon Set
10 freeware icons inspired by some delicious coffee foods. Content: Apple, Breads, Cheese, Coffee cups, Coffee pot, Cookies, Toast. Designed by Dirceu Veiga.
OSE PNGs
Free for personal use, but can be modified and released afterwards. This set also includes PSDs.
Email Me Icon Set
11 icons, 128×128px, created for the Mozdev.org projects. Free for personal use only. Designed by Mario Martínez from Mayosoft.
I’m not a Patriot
Flags of 32 countries + 2 communities, resulting in 34 png-images of file size 256×256px.
Social Web Buttons
Two “social” sets, each consisting of 20 images in .png-format. Released under Creative Commons license. The sets include buttons for Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, LastFM, Pownce and Slideshare.
Windows Outlook
1 png (256px). For private and noncommercial use only. By Vande Mataram.
Mobile Device Icons
60 mobile device icons in 128×128 and 60 mobile device icons in 256×256. In .PNG format for whatever you use them for. If you’re looking for blackberry icons, check here. Courtesy of ~pierocksmysocks from US.
Choose your sport Icons
8 original icons about sport areas. Available for both Windows and Mac OS X. Size: 256×256px and 512×512px.
Sketchy Paper Icon Set
Icons are created with simple, sketchy lines on a unique background - a paper note. So, get creative when using the set, hope it brings a new, unique light on your projects. The set contains 20 high quality, free icons in these sizes: 16×16px, 32×32px, 48×48px, 64×64px and 128×128px and 32-bit transparency PNG file format. 20 icons in .ico, .png and .icns format. You can also purchase these icons — then you may use them without being obligated to put a back link.
Mini Icon Sets
Vaga
This set of 60, semi-transparent .png icons (16 x 16) ready to use and available for free download. Released by Ed Merritt.
Monofactor Icon Set
This icon set, created by Onur Oztaskiran, contains 25 scalable Illustrator format icons. You can open the .ai file with any version of Illustrator above 8.0. With earlier versions, you might loose some of the effects on the icons. You are completely free to edit, change and/or directly use the icons in your site and in any kind of your projects.
Web Development Icons
24×24 free icon set in web 2.0 style. These icons are free to use in any kind of project unlimited times. Released under Creative Commons license. Windows only.
Circular Icons
Circular is a free icon set containing 100+ free to use icons. It’s a themed collection of 100+ 16×16 icons designed by Ben Gillbanks. The icons are available as a zip download of alpha transparent png’s (link over there on the right), and cost a grand total of nothing!
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Richard Shields (May 21st, 2008, 4:26 pm)
Nice collection!
Cameron Singe (May 21st, 2008, 4:39 pm)
Don’t forget fam fam fam icons, they are the holy grail of free icons
Ade (May 21st, 2008, 4:42 pm)
Yummy… so many delicious
snacksicons!Michael (May 21st, 2008, 5:07 pm)
Phenomenal! Great collections as always!!
Mini0n (May 21st, 2008, 5:18 pm)
Awesome! =)
You guys rule!
Erik Reagan (May 21st, 2008, 5:22 pm)
I was just looking through the previous Icon lists today and this one really adds some great ones to the ever growing list! Thanks as always!
DWiner (May 21st, 2008, 5:23 pm)
Fantastic collection set…
Stumpy (May 21st, 2008, 5:42 pm)
Link [www.famfamfam.com] - the greatest free icons available
David Dashifen Kees (May 21st, 2008, 5:55 pm)
@Cameron Singe
I, too, was surprised not to see the famfamfam.com icons in the list!
jackchen (May 21st, 2008, 6:03 pm)
that’s so cool … thanks
Andrew (May 21st, 2008, 6:15 pm)
Wow, really nice collection, Thank you!
geticon (May 21st, 2008, 6:15 pm)
Good…..
Kate (May 21st, 2008, 6:29 pm)
Cool list of icons - free, sweet, delicious !
Joefrey Mahusay (May 21st, 2008, 6:33 pm)
Great List of Icons!
Casey Jenks (May 21st, 2008, 7:11 pm)
awesome!
Pratyush (May 21st, 2008, 7:47 pm)
I am loving it…
www.wiltech-center.com (May 21st, 2008, 9:52 pm)
Good collections, thanks.
Nytryk (May 21st, 2008, 9:54 pm)
WoW
zengkun100 (May 21st, 2008, 10:05 pm)
So good!
I Love it
Jen (May 21st, 2008, 10:12 pm)
I really like the look of Link [splashyfish.com]. Pretty nice, wish you had included them!
Sandie Sørensen (May 21st, 2008, 10:17 pm)
Nice collection!
Especially the sketchy paper icon set. :)
shashi arya (May 21st, 2008, 10:43 pm)
U ppl always makes me Happy :) GR* collection as usual
V1 (May 21st, 2008, 10:52 pm)
Your cream icons are double,
for the rest, nice list.
And arent the phoenix (deviantart) icons.. not download able
namitha (May 21st, 2008, 10:53 pm)
great icons! thanks!
Sid (May 21st, 2008, 11:03 pm)
I cannot download the Stylized Icon Set - Designed by Lucas (aka pho3nix-bf) from Poland. The YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook icon may be used in online-projects. It just redirects to a page where a wallpaper of all the icons is visible… How do I get the icons?
Benni (May 21st, 2008, 11:38 pm)
Great collection. Maybe I´m using some of these icons for one of my projects.
Tom (May 22nd, 2008, 12:16 am)
Amazing. I already have some of these sets, the entire collection is wonderful.
Thanks for your work.
Mike (May 22nd, 2008, 12:26 am)
Stunning collection.. You guys come up trumps once again..
Thanks…. :-)
psyxoz (shaman.net.ua) (May 22nd, 2008, 12:34 am)
Great post!!! Thanks!!!
greedz (May 22nd, 2008, 1:09 am)
nice roundup, thanks :)
Stuart Maynard-Keene (May 22nd, 2008, 1:37 am)
Yeh, why no FamFamFam?
Fodcj (May 22nd, 2008, 1:54 am)
Amazing collection, thanks
Jo (May 22nd, 2008, 2:08 am)
Beautiful …
seb (May 22nd, 2008, 2:09 am)
nothing new
basibanget (May 22nd, 2008, 2:29 am)
fam fam fam has already featured in their recent posts
eikaas (May 22nd, 2008, 2:29 am)
no need to show famfamfam, already shown in other articles…
Fath (May 22nd, 2008, 2:31 am)
Great icons collections. I love it!
honso (May 22nd, 2008, 2:52 am)
thank you guys!! Really nice set…..
dragoshell (May 22nd, 2008, 3:57 am)
I think you missed the FamFamFam icons Link [www.famfamfam.com]
Brian W (May 22nd, 2008, 4:04 am)
Very nice
Jamal (May 22nd, 2008, 4:15 am)
Thank you so much…
Mike Healy (May 22nd, 2008, 4:20 am)
There’s some really amazing work here. Icons are becoming more and more detailed, and so, labour intensive to create.
A few of these really make me hungry too.
Dean (May 22nd, 2008, 4:29 am)
very nice collection!
Dumitru Tira (May 22nd, 2008, 4:48 am)
Hey, great list, I’m sure I’ll use some of those for my future projects :)
Thank You
Zak (May 22nd, 2008, 6:18 am)
amazing!
congrats to all the designers.
trice22 (May 22nd, 2008, 6:23 am)
Very nice collection and impressive illustrations—unfortunately most of them don’t really qualify as icons per se (in a traditional sense at least).
Doesn’t hurt the impression, though.
Keep up the good work!
—trice22
IreEnigma (May 22nd, 2008, 6:28 am)
Quit spamming famfamfam, its obvious the same person keeps doing it…
Tobbi (May 22nd, 2008, 6:34 am)
Amazing collection. Thx.
Arvind (May 22nd, 2008, 6:49 am)
Nice collection……
mikemike (May 22nd, 2008, 7:02 am)
Best icon set to date!
Kesepian (May 22nd, 2008, 8:39 am)
Thank you for sharing these great icons!
______________
Kesepian.
John (May 22nd, 2008, 9:38 am)
Gracias!!!!!
Geoff (May 22nd, 2008, 10:05 am)
famfamfam have already been mentioned here in previous icon lists. This is a list of 40 MORE icon sets, beyond those already mentioned before in many, many lists. Jeez.
Great NEW list!
Free Icons (May 22nd, 2008, 10:12 am)
Nice icons, Can u add my Free Button Icons to you list
Link [www.freeiconsdownload.com]
70 Free Button Icons in Five different colors
Thanks
Nout van Deijck - Blog (May 22nd, 2008, 10:48 am)
WOW
incredible icons!
Thanks very much, Smashing Magazine!!!
JHONEY (May 22nd, 2008, 11:16 am)
AWESOME COLLECTION …………….MY QUEST IS FOR THE BEST..
SO NOW DAYS IM STING WITHNSMASHINGMAGZINE……….KEEEPIT UUUUP
sinan (May 22nd, 2008, 12:01 pm)
superb !
ob (May 22nd, 2008, 12:43 pm)
does anyone here have any links to tutorials or anything on how to make icons like these? I would love to learn more about the whole process..
cheers
Simon (May 22nd, 2008, 1:27 pm)
Very pretty and high quality designs but mostly useless. How often do you need a coffee machine icon?
lex (May 22nd, 2008, 1:35 pm)
sweet sweet inspiration and awesome styles!
elias (May 22nd, 2008, 3:25 pm)
Great work and nice list guys! Thank you.
If someone could, please, provide resources (tutorials, books, articles, etc.) where one could learn “icon design,” I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and feedback.
Thanks in advance.
EL
Mike the pcrobot (May 22nd, 2008, 4:55 pm)
Wow! Very nice list! Thanks for posting all of these!
Brad Baumann (May 22nd, 2008, 5:36 pm)
Whoa! Sweet!
leaf (May 22nd, 2008, 5:55 pm)
sweet~ I love all of these
aankun (May 22nd, 2008, 8:05 pm)
love it all. minimalist is cool. cuse less is more
Designer-artist (May 22nd, 2008, 8:09 pm)
The good collection, very much was pleasant! Has downloaded a little icons on the computer. As required, I shall necessarily put at myself on a website! Thanks!
Sajid Iqbal (May 22nd, 2008, 9:42 pm)
Aha…Very nice collection. Great collection as always by Samashing team.
Igor Klajo (May 22nd, 2008, 11:32 pm)
Absolutely fantastic icon collections and helpful article . . . saved me a lot of time finding these icons :D Thanks
Twizted Urbanite (May 23rd, 2008, 12:18 am)
Smashing does it again! Thanks for the constant inspiration guys. Those RSS sandwiches look disturbingly tantalizing ;o)
Wimpus (May 24th, 2008, 2:49 am)
OMG, awesome! Thx a lot :-)
jess (May 24th, 2008, 9:27 am)
Can’t download the icons from
Link [www.design-freak.com]
Murtuza (May 25th, 2008, 9:37 pm)
Very Nice Collection…. i really like it…..
Nicolas (May 26th, 2008, 10:36 am)
Most of the “Free Icons For Your Web Designs” are *completely* crap in small sizes. Just because they get blurry. Looks like you resized the bitmap instead of the original vector *and* didn’t tweak anything (like increasing the line width so that it’s still visible and not 1/4th of a pixel).
Vane (May 26th, 2008, 12:01 pm)
@ ob:
DryIcons Tutorial: Creating an icon in Fireworks
Link [www.adobe.com]
Echilon (May 26th, 2008, 12:20 pm)
Great set, thanks.
Mundo Libre (May 26th, 2008, 5:40 pm)
One more for your collection
Link [www.starfishwebconsulting.co.uk]
Enjoy it!
Vaibhav (May 28th, 2008, 2:21 am)
Well this is a nice list. If you are looking at something in particular then you should take a look at this icon search engine: Link [www.onlineobservations.net]
M.khalid (May 28th, 2008, 3:38 am)
Just Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
tanha (May 28th, 2008, 9:23 am)
goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddddddddddd
merccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
Wordman (May 29th, 2008, 6:30 am)
Heh. Because no collection of free icons would be complete if it didn’t rip off the Panic truck at least once. See here for more examples: Link [www.panic.com]
Dennis (May 29th, 2008, 8:08 am)
Awesome, thanks! Well done are so great on the user experience. Bad icons are so bad! Most of these are great though, so thanks again ;-)
Norik (June 1st, 2008, 11:07 pm)
How can you forget famfam icon set. internets most famous icon set is not here :(
SmashingFeeds (June 5th, 2008, 11:23 pm)
awesome…. wonderful collection.. I love those RSS badges..
KAJTREE (June 7th, 2008, 8:48 pm)
please teach me how can i use these icons?or how can i install them on my computer?
with the special thanks from of buttom of my hearth
D. Diesil (June 12th, 2008, 10:40 pm)
Tons of goodies!
Cant wait to use some…
magdy (June 17th, 2008, 8:01 am)
many thanks
alex (June 21st, 2008, 8:03 am)
I wish to show the work how it can be made?
Hoditta (June 29th, 2008, 5:11 am)
The icons are amazing!!
thanks….
SikDave (July 10th, 2008, 8:16 pm)
Sik - thanks a wok load.
marina (July 16th, 2008, 10:36 pm)
Fantastico! Sono bellissime, grazie dall’italia per averle condivise.
Thanks