Smashing Community Icon Set: Comment and Win!

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Ready for this? Here’s how it works: you tell us what icons you need, and then we design them together with SoftFacade (which recently created the beautiful Smashing Retro Icon Set) and release them for free. And to make it a bit more interesting, we’ll smash six commenters and forum participants with original nerdy gifts.

To participate, just suggest an idea for a great useful icon set in the comments to this post or in this forum thread. Details are below.

How do I participate?

Participating is very easy: just let us know what icon set you would like us to design (and, if possible, what specific icons the set should contain) in the comments to this post or in this forum thread. The set may contain at most eight icons.

On the 20th of March, we’ll select the most popular ideas and requests and publish a poll in our magazine, inviting our readers to vote on their favorite theme. Once it’s done, the creative minds behind SoftFacade will carefully design the set and submit drafts of its work in progress to the forum, documenting the design process. Hence, you can observe how the set is created and, if there is something you would like to change, communicate with the designers directly. You can keep track of updates on Twitter @smashingmag and @softfacade.

Awards

A total of six commenters and active participants in the forum will be awarded Mac Dock Icon Throw Pillows (see images below). The winners will be picked randomly and announced in the forum and on Twitter after the theme of the icon set has been chosen.

Finally, we’ll release the set as a free download, which you can freely use for personal and commercial use.

Smashing Magazine Is All About Our Readers

At Smashing Magazine, our readers have always been our highest priority. We respect our readers; we listen to them; we are always open to their suggestions; and we always appreciate constructive criticism. This is why we created a number of ways to interact with our readers:

  • We created a friendly Smashing Forum to make it possible for our community to exchange ideas and help each other in problem solving.
  • We are using Twitter to share useful resources and knowledge with, and get feedback from, our readers (e.g. deciding which article should appear next), and we now have almost 20,000 followers.
  • We are preparing the Smashing Book, in which our readers can decide what topics will be included.

And now we would like you to decide what icon set we should design and release next, especially for you. We hope to get great feedback from you, and we would like to thank SoftFacade for its cooperation in this event! Please spread the word, too; we would like the design community to decide what would be most useful and interesting for designers out there!

So, what icon set is it going to be, folks?

(al)

The Smashing Team loves high-quality content and cares about little details. Through our online articles, books and ebooks and Smashing Conferences, we are committed to stimulating creativity and strengthening the Web design community’s creative forces.

  1. 201

    Some nice smooth e-commerce icons would be good. A bit of uniformity between e-commerce sites can only be a good thing. Aids usability, breeds confidence and recognition in the user etc.

    I notice a few requests for portfolio icons. Surely if you’re doing a portfolio you should make your own! There are enough blog and social network ones these days as well, grunge, 3D, web 2.0 styles etc, they’re all out there.

    0
  2. 202

    Pins. A nice and simple set of pins for customising Google maps. Those default ones are horrid.

    0
  3. 203

    Laurel Natale

    March 19th, 2009 3:18 am

    I think a set of Marketing icons would be nice. Internet Marketing, Print Marketing, Viral Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, Buzz Marketing, and so forth. These could be used by web design companies, freelancers, portfolios to show type of marketing used in examples or case studies, in marketing and design blogs, or to give the readers a little hint about the type of article they will be reading about. I haven’t seen any yet on the web, and I think a collection would be nice.

    0
  4. 204

    Icons for PHP, JS, Grafic, HTML, CSS files

    0
  5. 205

    Looking at the financial crisis and it´s lasting effects, an icon set dealing with stocks, business and charts would be cool. Pretty hard to create some coherent icons for this rather complex subject.

    0
  6. 206

    Laurel Natale

    March 19th, 2009 3:35 am

    A set of Marketing icons would be nice such as:

    Internet Marketing
    Print Marketing
    Word-of-Mouth Marketing
    Guerilla Marketing
    Buzz Marketing
    Viral Marketing
    Traditional Marketing
    And so forth…

    I haven’t seen anything like these yet, and I think web design companies could use them as well as freelancers, bloggers, etc.. They could be used as service icons, or in portfolios and case studies to demonstrate type of marketing used. Marketing bloggers can use them to give hint as to which type of marketing the article is talking about. I think a lot can be done with these.

    0
  7. 207

    Great initiative, I would like to see a icon set of programming languages, it would be very useful and I would like to see how it turns out, in the end being a strict theme…

    0
  8. 208

    Great!

    I need a set of icons for a website deailng with soccer game!
    The site has a funny tone, so informal icons are very well appreciated!

    ;)

    0
  9. 209
  10. 210

    I would like a set of icons related to flying like airplanes, airports, tickets, icons of popular destinations: Paris, New York, Moscow, Sao Paolo, Budapest, Vienna, Madrid, etc.

    Great contest idea.

    0
  11. 211

    Well…well .. First I would like to congratulate SM for the iniciative.

    The icon set I’d like to have is about the Graphic Design and Web Design themselves… I think I’ve never seen any of this kind of set…

    And would be great have them so as we could use on our sites or computers. If I’m not asking too much some “TECH GEEK” icons would be inserted in the set too… I’d love have this ICON SET!

    (sorry for english)

    0
  12. 212

    food & nutrition set please, I need it for yesterday ;-) You can also make some fat people avatars for me :)

    0
  13. 213

    Those mac pillows look good for me, they look soft te he he

    0
  14. 214

    A set of icons for general website navigation would be nice. Most icon sets contain some usefull icons, but also lack a few. Icons that I would like are:

    Home
    E-mail
    Search
    Login
    Forward
    Back
    Photo’s
    Calendar

    0
  15. 215

    Subject: Film animation technique

    Icons to identify:

    01. Workshops
    02. Videos
    03. PDF to download
    04. Podcast to download
    05. Forum
    06. Tutorials
    07. Software review
    08. Teachers lounge
    09. Students work
    10. Links
    11. Theater (to view films done by students)
    12. Gallery (production stills)

    0
  16. 216

    Francois Botha

    March 19th, 2009 4:28 am

    I’d actually like a set of icons that relates to the services an ISP would offer, e.g.
    * E-mail
    * WWW hosting
    * VoIP
    * Hardware setup
    * Web login
    * The above for both business and personal packages.
    * Contact us, FAQ, etc
    * Anything else you can think of
    I imagine that these icons could be based on web.png of the Flavours icon set.

    0
  17. 217

    John McMullen

    March 19th, 2009 4:29 am

    Hmm… I think I saw a posting or two on this, but I’ve got a little twist. How about a food based icon set… ie: an orange with skin cut to reveal a RSS feed icon.

    0
  18. 218

    I think account icons suggested by JessicaB or sea based icons suggested by parsifal would be great. I have a marine life website [portuguese only, for now!] and a think sea icons would awesome! :)

    Anyway, thanks again, Smashing Magazine, for this amazing oportunity!

    0
  19. 219

    Different Adium Icons!!! :)

    0
  20. 220

    How about something a little outside of the tech and design realm…

    Paint Theme

    Airbrush
    Paint Brush
    Paint Can
    Spilled Paint
    etc

    Or mechanical/motorhead theme:
    Engine block
    Tires
    Wrenches
    etc

    I also think Bryant’s idea is great…

    Bryant (March 18th, 2009, 11:57 am)

    A nice set of modern or grunge motorcycle or streetbike icons would be nice. There doesn’t seem to be any created as of yet that I have been able to locate.

    0
  21. 221

    >> Do me a slick web 2.0 icon set with huge icons for use on portfolios, please. <<

    Me too, plz. :-D

    0
  22. 222

    How bout a rocket with the rss feed thing on it which will represent how using the feed is like going to a new world type thing.

    0
  23. 223

    Hi!

    This is my idea:
    A microwave icon set…

    Just some icons cooked in a microwave. Some icons could be:
    -Smashing Magazine logo (in many colors??)
    -Social bookmarks
    -Smilies
    -Cup of tea and coffee
    -Comment and icons (post new, read comment, etc…)
    -Download and upload icons
    -Animals (mmm, I won’t put animals in a microwave :p )
    -Alfabet
    -A ‘read more…’ icon
    -File type icons
    -Email and RSS icons
    -A microwave in a microwave?
    -Etc…

    0
  24. 224

    Hey, great idea!

    How about music icons:

    LP’s
    Singles
    Album covers

    different instrument for different kind of music:

    rock: fender and gibson like icon
    classic: violin:
    country western: Acoustic
    folk: banjo
    … and so on

    looking forward to se them in a post tomorrow! ;)

    0
  25. 225

    Some MAD icons would be great! Icons are always pretty and happy! Every time my users send my forms with useless trash, so i had to do a super thight validation… so then, if they still continue doing errors even now, i wish i had some MAD icons to show them together with the errors :D

    I love the pillows!

    0
  26. 226

    I’ve also got an other idea.

    A pillow icon set ;-)

    0
  27. 227

    A set of user experience icons for user flows would be fantastic:
    – a few user icons (different races, genders, ages, etc.)
    – decision tree icons (decision, concurrent event, system decision, etc.)
    – database icons (similar to Visio’s for email dB, web dB, etc.)
    – user actions (click, print, download, register, email, log in, etc.)
    – web page type (HTML, form, PDF, Flash, JavaScript/AJAX, search results, data, etc.)
    – window state (layer, new window, video layer, etc.)
    – status icons (error, help, information, etc.)

    0
  28. 228

    it would be nice funny icons about abstract descriptions like profesional, accurate, confidentiality, security,

    0
  29. 229

    I’m always on the hunt for phone, and fax icons.

    always seem to find everything else. but whatever happened to the neccessities?

    Home, about, contact, phone, fax?

    ya know, all in the same STYLE.

    0
  30. 230

    Chris Trygstad

    March 19th, 2009 5:33 am

    What about some information technology hardware icons? Like servers, storage, RAID arrays, racks, tape libraries, icons that can be used to communicate the massive datacenters that will be fueling the cloud computing everyone is talking about out there.

    0
  31. 231

    Hi, I’d need these:
    - Paint icon
    - Web icon
    - Photo icon
    - Print icon

    0
  32. 232

    I’d like to see some icons for a “social website” that i’m working on
    icons like
    - person (male/female)
    - institution
    as well as combination of the above two for searching and/or lists

    0
  33. 233

    I REALLY need some update, cool looking construction related icons. Things like cranes, bulldozers, orange cones, builders, etc.

    0
  34. 234

    Simply amazing , fantastic !!!!!!
    I wanna icons to build a cms, like text editor, logins, etc…

    0
  35. 235

    I’d love some funny stick figure icons which can be used on any website’s tour and help section.
    Love you guys, keep on doing awesome stuff.

    0
  36. 236

    Matt Litherland

    March 19th, 2009 6:02 am

    Can we have a FULL set of web icons, totally new revamped!

    0
  37. 237

    I would like to see some hq file type icons (pdf, doc, wmv, etc.).

    0
  38. 238

    I’d like an icon set of animals, particularly jungle-themed.

    0
  39. 239

    Social networking pillows…

    Facebook, Twitter, Blog, RSS, Digg, Flickr, Delicious, Stumbleupon

    0
  40. 240

    Browser pillows…

    Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, Camino, Chrome, Maxthon

    0
  41. 241

    Adobe creative suite…

    Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, After Effects, Premier, InDesign

    0
  42. 242

    Hi guys,
    i think that some special icons for different sectors of design would be very nice for websites specialiced in our issue. I mean:
    Graphic, web, typography, interior design…

    Those pillows look great!!!

    0
  43. 243

    RichardvdBoom

    March 19th, 2009 6:20 am

    Some Photography icons.

    - Camera
    - Photoprinter
    - lenses
    - etc.

    Its for the use on specified photographers portfolio’s etc. Should be a bit cartoony but seriously orentiated.

    0
  44. 244

    Popular filetype icons.. such as those for downloadable documents such as RAR, ZIP, XLS/XLSX, DOC/DOCX, PDF and the likes would be very desirable!

    0
  45. 245

    Some icons that convey ideas like:

    - Happy customer
    - Easy sale
    - Friendly support
    - Pay easy
    - Connected!

    0
  46. 246

    video, image and audio icons.

    0
  47. 247

    I think enterprise icon set , which consist of enterprise icon, business process icon, information system icon, and organizational department icon, etc, will be valuable.

    0
  48. 248

    A portfolio icon set, with icons for a gallery/portfolio, contact, service, hire me, about me, home, coding, design, etc.

    0
  49. 249

    I need an icon with a street sign that says EAST13TH :)

    0
  50. 250

    I would love for someone much more artistic than I to create icons for the non-profit with which I volunteer. RSS, social networking – but with a pb&j sandwich, lunch bag, cookies, chips, bagel, coffee, etc. – that ties into the way we serve the homeless. We’re called Food For Thought (I know, not terribly original), and we’re based in Toledo, OH.

    0
  51. 251

    A group of people with big heads, from all parts of the world, such as chinese, African, Latin, etc.

    0
  52. 252

    A set of icons for driving schools would be nice :-)

    0
  53. 253

    some hand drawn flourish type ones please.

    0
  54. 254

    …holy smoke, i (want) LOVE that mac pillow…

    I always wanted to do some game (panzer general2) related icons.

    0
  55. 255

    robots
    plants/trees/nature/flowers
    manufacturing components – gears/cnc machines/tools
    pantone chips
    furniture
    shoes
    retro patterns

    0
  56. 256

    Some sports related web icons would be great. Things for areas like equipment, sports, statistics, bio, and others. There are lots of icons, but not very many sport related.

    0
  57. 257

    I think it would be neat to see some e-ccommerce icons with an automotive theme.

    0
  58. 258

    I’ve been trying to find an Icon set that has old school contact items
    phone, fax, email, snail mail, address

    Preferably in small, medium and large sizes.
    This seems like a great contest can’t wait to see the results.

    0
  59. 259

    I’ve been looking for a slick consequent icon set I can use on my personal site which has a dark background. I write articles and have a lifestream going on, so my menu bar includes sections as home, articles, lifestream, contact, about. Maybe an additional matching RSS icon would be nice. And since lots of people have portfolios, a photos and a services page, that would suit perfectly as well.

    Also, because I’m a coffee addict, anything coffee related I would go crazy for!

    0
  60. 260

    I LOVE those pillows

    I would love to see some icons related to a software interface design:
    • scan • repair • fix • delete • purchase • optimize • clean

    OR

    Some environmental icon sets, green-design is really popular right now.

    0
  61. 261

    OMG I would love to see some navy / sailor / pinup / tattoo icons!!!

    0
  62. 262

    a professional buisness icon se would be very usefull..

    i haven’t found a good looking icon for

    - fax
    - telephone (which is not a mobile or some call center thingy.. so maybe just a nice standard phone)
    - an according mail icon ( to suit the set)
    - some “download” icon which is not looking like “file sharing”
    - so make them clean..no shiny web2.0 look
    - maybe just highres grascale so everyone can change the colors to fit the needs in PS

    that would be nice.. and some pdf,doc,xls… icons to put behind the links via css

    0
  63. 263

    A flower based icon set

    0
  64. 264

    Adobe Creative Suit Icon Set, cs3 cs4.

    0
  65. 265

    How about a set of icons based around copywriting / editing / proofreading? A couple things that could be included would be:
    1. A red pen.
    2. A computer keyboard.
    3. Some various proofreading and editing marks, arrows and parenthesis in red, etc.
    4. A submissions box – like a black desk tray, with pages in it.
    5. A pair of reading glasses.
    6. A dictionary and / or thesaurus.

    Alternatively, what about an icon set of punctuation marks?
    1. ?
    2. !
    3. ;
    4. ;
    5. @.
    6. &.
    7. +
    8. #
    9. =
    et cetera …

    Anyway, I’d be really interested in seeing what you guys could come up with. I’m a freelance copywriter, and I would love to use some of those icons on my blog / website.

    0
  66. 266

    I’d like:

    A Radio Ico – A simple little radio icon, I’d use it for a station website I’m working on

    0
  67. 267

    I need icons to use in the Mac OS X dock for folders such as Applications, Documents, Downloads, etc. Typically I get generic low contrast folder symbols with light icons indicating their function. Alternatively, I’ll get the image of a stack of icons with the top most Application visible over the others which is particularly confusing.

    Viewing these items in the dock in a screenshot is positively confounding. Who can help?

    0
  68. 268

    Would love a set of cinema/filmmaking icons. Could use the camera, the tripod, the clap, the movie reel, the director chair…

    0
  69. 269

    A nice usability icon set for use in web applications!

    Loading icons, action icons, commands, abstract states, etc..

    0
  70. 270

    -Home
    -Portfolio
    -Clients
    -How-to’s
    -Services
    -Contact Us

    Thank you!

    0
  71. 271

    Predrag Drljaca

    March 19th, 2009 8:49 am

    Maybe some sort of Portfolio Icon Set. Home, About, Services, Work, Contact… a few more on sub-pages like Services > Slicing, Design, Print, etc.

    Have a nice day :)
    Pedja

    EDIT:
    hehe… Haddy typed it faster :)

    0
  72. 272

    I would like to see grocery shopping or money saving type icons.

    0
  73. 273

    I would like to see an icon set related to the sport of Diving.

    i.e. divers, dive boats, fins, oxygen tank, mask, manta rays, fish, etc

    0
  74. 274

    I would like to see a spray paint social network icon set.

    0
  75. 275

    Bank theme icon set, business (not e-commerce), anti-crisis and economy set.
    :)

    you’re grear!

    0
  76. 276

    i would love a candy mountain logo for my website i am making

    0
  77. 277

    Hello,
    Great idea !
    it’s could be interested to design a e-catalogue set icon.
    - Thumbnail view
    - Send to a friend
    - Print page
    - Download catalogue
    - Summary of the catalogue
    - Search by kewwords
    - go to page
    - fullscreen

    Thx

    0
  78. 278

    Hi,
    I suggest apersonal portfolio set icon.
    objective, profile, education, work experience, portfolio, intrests, competences
    Thanks a lot,

    0
  79. 279

    Hi, I suggest an Icon set for all types of Arts out there.

    * visual arts (such as painting and print-making, sculpture and so on)
    * crafts (pottery, ceramics, jewellery-making etc)
    * performing arts (dance, drama, music, opera, new circus)
    * literature (creative writing, poetry, storytelling)
    * media (film, video, photography, computer design)

    I know you can made a cool set!

    Cheers!

    0
  80. 280

    I’d like to see a user set of different professions (perhaps departments)

    0
  81. 281

    I would like to see a set of chess icons. =D

    0
  82. 282

    +1 vote for portfolio icons like different types of project, features, about me, education, resume, etc.

    0
  83. 283

    Would love icon sets for small businesses as I think in this economic climate, small businesses great design more than ever. For example, an icon set for restaurants, an icon set for a gallery, icon set for a boutique, etc.

    0
  84. 284

    Some gothicy horror icons. Or classic horror icons. And they should be for everything like flickr, tweeter, rss, search, email, facebook etc

    0
  85. 285

    Riccardo Messina

    March 19th, 2009 10:46 am

    Il mio set ideale di icone è questo:

    - Musica

    - Video

    - Giochi

    - Testi

    - Radio

    - Tv

    ————————— TRADOTTO ——————————————–

    My ideal icon set is this:

    - Music

    - Video

    - Games

    - Texts

    - Radio

    - Tv

    0
  86. 286

    People’s ideas look good! I hope to win those awesome pillows.

    For Web icons, you could create a traditional set of 3D icons that are animated .GIFs, bringing Web 2.0 back to 1999. I would probably not use such icons, but it’s a thought.

    0
  87. 287

    Few ideas:

    Car logos set
    Xtrem sports set
    New Adobe set
    New Hard drive set and one for finder

    0
  88. 288

    Alexander Baldwin

    March 19th, 2009 11:13 am

    An icon for all the major technologies…
    XML, Javascript, PHP, XHTML, CSS, ASP(.NET), Ruby, Python, etc…

    Sometimes I even amaze myself :)

    0
  89. 289

    Andrew Philpott

    March 19th, 2009 11:42 am

    A multimedia icon set would be great.

    ie:

    speaker
    camera
    video camera

    things like that. i had a hard time finding good ones for a project i was just working on.

    0
  90. 290

    For buttons linking to forms:
    - Contact Us
    - Book Service Appointment
    - Parts Inquiry
    - Request Test Drive
    - Apply Online

    Website pages, preferably car dealership:
    - Home
    - About Us
    - New Vehicles
    - Pew-Owned Vehicles
    - Parts
    - Service
    - Financing
    - Careers
    - Location / Hours of Operation
    - Contact Us
    - Online Coupons

    0
  91. 291

    Florian Stelter

    March 19th, 2009 12:05 pm

    e-Commerce Icons ;-)

    0
  92. 292
  93. 293

    Zombie icon set.
    bwaaaaaaains…

    0
  94. 294

    Like to see some icons with twitter feed update

    0
  95. 295

    Funky retro mini cooper icons

    0
  96. 296

    awesome! Pretty cool throw pillows

    0
  97. 297

    cooking icon set, or one for restaurants.

    0
  98. 298

    I’d really like to have some nice icons for web2.0 development like,

    - Standards
    - SEO
    - SMO
    - SEF
    - XHTML
    - CSS
    - Web 2.0
    - AJAX
    - and maybe MKTG icons too

    thanks!

    0
  99. 299

    I need icons showing different aspects of golf – player, trophy, green, ball, club, peg, …

    Thanks!

    0
  100. 300

    I Think;some great icons for web 2.0 .. Social Bookmarks set maybe..

    0

  1. 1

    I am hoping for a volkswagen golf mark 2 icon set :) No one dared to make it for this kind of car yet…

    +1

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