50 Fresh Useful Icon Sets For Your Next Design
Beautiful and free icon sets always come in handy. Used properly and moderately, icons can be helpful to provide users with memorable metaphors and illustrations that would provide a visual support for otherwise unspectacular text blocks. For instance, in web-applications memorable icons can be very helpful as they can make it easier for users to memorize how to perform some specific task or where to find some specific functions.
This large collection of recently released icon sets is supposed to help designers improve their designs on their web-sites and in web-applications. All icon sets are free. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the icons — the license can change from time to time. The icons provided below may turn out to be useful and helpful in corporate designs, portfolios, blogs, magazines and in Web-applications. Please feel free to suggest more icon sets in the comments to this post.
Web Application Icon Sets
Chalkwork HTML Royalty-free Icons
Chalkwork HTML is a free set of HTML-themed icons, designed to perfectly complement all other sets in the Chalkwork Family. Featuring 31 graphical representations of common markup elements, this is a completely free icon set available for personal and commercial projects alike (although the usual Chalkwork license terms still apply). The set is available in 3 sizes and 6 file formats: transparent PNG, TIF, GIF, BMP, Windows ICO, and Mac ICNS.
Hand Pointer Icons
Free icon set that includes 36 hand pointer icons of 6 diferent types with 6 color variants. Icon set also includes .psd source file.
Flavour Extended: The Ultimate Icon Set For Web Designers
A couple of months ago we released the beautiful Flavours Icon set that was designed by Oliver Twardowski, a graphic designer from Bonn, Germany, the set aimed to help designers in their Web and user interface designs, containing 177 icons in a resolution of 48×48 pixels. In this post we release the updated version of the icon set, now with 452 icons, freely available to use in private or commercial projects.
Basic Set
42 high quality icons in 64×64, 32×32 and 16×16 sizes. Mac OS, Win and .PNG-formats.
Web Injection
This Free Icon Pack is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed. The set includes 26 stylish icons designed by Midtone Design Studio. Each icon is a .png at 48x48px. The Icons were tediously hand crafted by designer Jonatan Castro Fernández.
File Status Icons
File Status Icons set includes 16 icons that can be used for web-applications that deploy Subversion-based projects.
2experts Icons Set
These icons are created from scratch using Adobe Fireworks. The zipped pack contains 48×48 PNG images, which you can use for free.
Danish Royalty Free
Designed by Jonas Rask.
Onebit Icons Set
80 beautiful icons in the resolution 48×48px, .png. Download part 1, too.
On Stage Icons Set
The set contains 49 free vector icons, including PSD, which can be useful for both corporate and personal projects. You can use the set for free, without any restrictions whatsoever. The icons are available in PNG format in a resolution 128×128 pixels. Also included in the package are 100% pure shape-based layered PSDs.
The Browser Icons
This set contains 9 web browser icons available in 64×64, 32×32 and 16×16 pixels. Includes major browsers like Mozilla Firefox,Internet Explorer, Opera,Google Chrome and more.
Milky Icons Set
The Milky set contains more than 131 icons primarily colored in green, giving an eye-pleasant look and prominent display on either dark or bright backgrounds. After eight times of releasing the icons seperately as each part at Min Tran’s weblog, designed mostly at request by our users or readers, now we gathered and packed them all into one package, conveniently for you to get all the icons at the same time.
Media Icons
This icons set contains 15 simple icons in PNG (128×128px), for Windows and Mac.
Silk Companion 1 (more Silk icons)
Mark James (FamFamFam) created a great set of 1,022 silky-smooth 16×16 true-colour icons in PNG format, aptly named Silk Icons. This set is based upon the Silk set and presents 460+ more icons that are derivations and recompositions of the original set.
Coquette 4 Icons Set
The forth part of the Coquette free icons set is powered by another 50 new icons. This playful free icon set contains curvy and colorful free icons made with one goal, to get all the affection and playfulness to your projects. “Coquette” free icon set contains 50 high quality, free icons in these sizes: 16x16px, 32x32px, 48x48px, 64x64px and 128x128px and 32-bit transparency PNG file format.
Coquette 5 Icons Set
The fifth part of the “Coquette” icon set contains 50 high quality, free icons in these sizes: 16x16px, 32x32px, 48x48px, 64x64px and 128x128px and 32-bit transparency PNG file format.
E-Commerce Icon Sets
Chalkwork Payments (Free) Icons
Chalkwork Payments is a free set of online payments icons, designed to perfectly complement all other sets in the Chalkwork Family. Featuring 21 base icons and 105 variations, these graphical representations of common payment services and payment-related imagery are a completely free icon set available for personal and commercial projects alike (although the usual Chalkwork license terms still apply). Chalkwork Payments is available in 3 sizes and 6 file formats: transparent PNG, TIF, GIF, BMP, Windows ICO, and Mac ICNS.
Finance Icons Set
The icons are free for personal use and also free for commercial use, but the designers require linking to their web site. The archive contains the icons in all sizes, Windows, Mac and PNG formats.
Credit Cards Icons
23 free credit card icons for free download. More free credit card icons.
Fresh Icons Set
This set contains 59 raster and vector icons. The set includes icons in PNG, ICNS and ICO formats. An EPS vector file is available as well.
Useful Icon Sets
Free Multimedia Vector Icons
A set of free multimedia vector icons in various colors and button styles. These are already vectors and not some ordinary transparent PNG anymore so you can easily modify them to your heart’s desire. I’m thinking of doing some vector social network icons next time but I’m still figuring out a concept. I know there are a lot of these kind of icons scattered around but I’d like to do something different. We’ll see. In the meantime, enjoy these vector icons. These icons come in two vector file formats, EPS (Illustrator 10 up) and AI (Illustrator CS up).
Fortune 500 Badges
Over 200 badges of famous brands, PSDs included.
172 final country flag icons
172 final country flag icons. 48×48 png.
Symbol Signs
The complete set of 50 passenger/pedestrian symbols developed by AIGA is now available on the web, free of charge. Signs are available in EPS and GIF formats.
Free Vector Icons Pack 03
Vector template.
Social Icon Sets
Social Media Mini Iconpack
This icon set consists of 30 (16×16) finely crafted social media icons. They are free to use non-commercially. Put them on your blog or on your website to help users bookmark or share your site socially. I hear its all-the-rage these days. This icon pack consists of the following icons, in absolutely no logical order:
Icons Cloud
Social icon set with icons shaped cloud. PNG.
Page Peel
The set contains 16 social icons in (transparent) PNG format.
Free Vector Icons Set + Twitter Birdy Icon
Handycons 2 – another free hand drawn icon set
This icons set contains Facebook, Blinklist, Feedburner, Flickr, FriendFeed, Furl, Gmail, Google, Heart icon, Last FM, Linked IN, Magnolia, Newsvine, PayPal, Skype, Sphinn, Twitter, Vimeo, Yahoo and You Tube icons. All icons come in four sizes: 16×16, 32×32, 64×64 and 12x128px. And they are all free.
19 Free Hand-Dran Sketch Icons
Each icon is a .JPG and comes in two sizes: 48×48px and 96×96px. Each is dark greyish on a white background.
Polaroid icon set
YouTube, Delicious, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, StumbleUpon, mySpace, Feedburner, Skype, Yahoo, Last.fm, Linkin, Reddit and Gmail.
IconTexto Web 2.0 User
28 icons in formats PNG (256×256, 128×128, 48×48, 32×32, 16×16), ICO (256×256, 128×128, 48×48, 32×32, 16×16) and ICNS (256×256, 128×128, 48×48, 32×32, 16×16).
Social Icons Hand-Drawn
This set includes icons for Blip.fm, Digg, Facebook, Firefox, Flickr, Meneame, Myspace, Technorati, Twitter, Vimeo, WordPress, Youtube, LastFM, RSS, Blogger, GMail, Reddit and StumbleUpon. The icons are available in the sizes 24×24, 32×32, 48×48 and 64×64. Released under Creative Commons license.
Circular Social Icons
The zip file includes 3 sizes for 17 icons: 128×128px, 64×64px and 32×32px. There is an icon for the following: Blogger, Delicious, DesignFloat, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Google, a heart icon that will work for anything (such as bookmark), MySpace, Reddit, an RSS icon, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo! and YouTube. Designed by Eli Burford from Australia.
Beautiful General Icon Sets
Manila Mail
A manila envelope style mail replacement.
Baggy Icon Set
Baggy Icon Set was designed by Paul Kadysz. It contains 5 high quality icns. This time we’ve got 3 different formats (.ico, .icns and .png) and 6 sizes! 512px-16px (except .png). Here’s how the set looks like.
Dox
The set contains 47 ICNS in iCONTAINER format.
Agua Icons Set
350 free beautiful desktop icons that can also be used online. Designed by the master David Lanham.
30 free office Icons
30 free office icons which rendered at 256×256, 128×128, 64×64, 48×48, 32×32, 24×24, 16×16 pixels and formats are png, ico and icns.
Project Icon Set For Free Download
This icon set, designed by Navdeep Raj and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers, contains 18 beautiful icons related to project management. The set includes the icons address card, bar graph, calendar, clock / time, conference device, contact, documents, draft, mail, marker, milestone, notes, portfolio, project plan / gant chart, search / find, sitemap / flowchart, todo and user / resource. The files are transparent PNGs, and vector Fireworks source files are included as well. As always, the set is completely free and may be used for any private or commercial project without any restrictions whatsoever.
Stationery Icons Set
A useful set of 22 vector icons (256 × 256 pixels). It contains book, brush, crayon, clip, color pencils, document, eraser, pad, palette, post-it note, scale and scissors, as well as the Fireworks source file.
Practica Icons Set
A free set of 11 useful high-quality icons, designed by DryIcons especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The icons are available in resolutions of 64, 128 and 256 pixels, in 32-bit transparency PNG format.
Weby Icon Set
The icons are available in PNG, ICO and ICNS format. They are free to use for both personal and commercial projects, including websites, templates & software. You are not allowed to sell or redistribute the icons anywhere else. If you like to share the icons please link to this article.
Sleek XP Basic Icons
50 stock icon in PNG and ICO formats. this is absolutely free for personal and non-commercial purposes only.
40 Free Twitter Badges
The set includes 40 files in total, all in transparent .png format. The buttons etc come with PSD files too so you can edit and re-size them as needed. The original characters come as a large High Res image which makes it very easy to scale down and use however you want.
Puzzle Icons
A small tribute to Erno Rubik and Uwe Meffert, Mac OS X Style!
Design a Stylish Mail Icon in Photoshop
Iiro Jappinen’s Icons
For personal use only.
Niepce’s Camera Obscura
The download package now includes 7 icons as an iContainer and for Mac (icns, Folder), Linux (PNG) and Windows (ico) and you can grab it from the Goodies page.
Cute Critters Free Icon Pack
The Cute Critters Icon Pack is a free Icon set with 13 painfully cute critters, created by Elio Rivero of ilovecolors. Each icon is in .png format sized at 512×512px with transparent backgrounds. Altogether, there is more cuteness than you could shake a stick at. This Free Icon Pack is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed.
Somatic Rebirth Apps Icons – Life in Colors
Sticker Icons
152 various beautiful icons designed by David Lanham.
Star Trek Icons
Official Star Trek icons and desktop pictures for free download.
Brian Temecula
June 7th, 2009 5:03 pmawesome
james
November 5th, 2009 11:29 amsweet!
Abhisek
January 4th, 2010 6:41 amAwesome!
Dil Mc
March 28th, 2010 11:10 amDude!
Ciaran
August 31st, 2010 3:13 amDonkey!
David Jonsson
January 10th, 2010 3:38 pmsweet!
eric
June 8th, 2010 10:21 pmword
john
September 29th, 2011 8:32 amTru
Michael
June 7th, 2009 5:23 pmthank you for these. Always a useful resource for icons.
Adam
June 7th, 2009 5:38 pmGreat stuff!!!…except the link for Flavour Extended 404s
Anrkist
June 7th, 2009 5:40 pmI just realized how much Chrome’s logo looks like Simon.
Glen Lipka
June 7th, 2009 5:44 pmNo mention of iconexperience? Such a large collections gives tons of opportunities for modification.(2500 icons in 5 sizes with and without shadows for $400 is my idea of a bargain.) I’m not a shill, just a fan. Otherwise, cool sets.
Mark Finch
June 7th, 2009 6:05 pmVery nice list. I about fell off my chair laughing when I hit the last one now we can all show off our inner Kirk. Great!
Won
June 7th, 2009 6:09 pmThanks for posting!
Allan Catadman
June 7th, 2009 6:13 pmSweet! thank you so much!
Amy
June 7th, 2009 6:20 pmreally awesome !~
Angels
June 7th, 2009 6:29 pmFreebies!! thank you.
Btw, Flavour Extended icons link is not working. it gives me 404 error page
(SM) Thank you, the link was fixed.
fly2279
June 7th, 2009 6:54 pmbroken link: http://media2.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/27/project-icon-set-for-free-download/
Noah
June 7th, 2009 7:05 pmThis looks like the correct link for the Flavours Extended set:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/20/flavour-extended-the-ultimate-icon-set-for-web-designers/
snnaqvi
June 7th, 2009 7:29 pmGreat collection
huy
June 7th, 2009 7:46 pmthank, very nine
Imran Khan
June 7th, 2009 7:53 pmgreat collection. Thank you very much
Daniel Calderon
June 7th, 2009 8:15 pmWow These are all awesome. I especially like the social set that looks ‘kindergarden’. I could really use these on my website. Not too sure how to integrate them though.
eddiedesigns
June 7th, 2009 8:25 pmBravo bravo for these!…..Thank you so much!
Two Socks - Graphic design and print
June 7th, 2009 8:29 pmBrilliant thankyou very much!
zh_air
June 7th, 2009 8:52 pmsigh~
Yestoday , I was looked for some sketch Icons set to finish homeworks,But failed
I’ve submitted it just not
What a pity
afraz
June 7th, 2009 8:59 pmOooooops, nice collection. Thank you so much. Very nice effort. I think nothing remained, all categories has been covered.
lotta thanx again
Benni
June 7th, 2009 9:02 pmGreat list. I can´t get enough icons. Thanks for sharing.
Peter
June 7th, 2009 9:05 pmthe fortune 500 set is a dead link
i.paul
June 7th, 2009 9:26 pmWow! Thank you so much.
Gtox
June 7th, 2009 10:38 pmAwesome post, ty!
Sylwia
June 7th, 2009 11:03 pmHera are Social Icons Pack +:
http://sawb.deviantart.com/art/Social-Icons-Pack-123247215
seber
June 7th, 2009 11:11 pmI think this is the most usefull post I’ve ever seen on Smashing, thank you very much!
MorayWeb
June 7th, 2009 11:15 pmIncredible collection and very useful – thanks for a top post! :)
Martijn
June 7th, 2009 11:25 pmNice collection agian, I like it ;)
Line of Design
June 7th, 2009 11:30 pmDamn….! The link to “Stationery Icons Set” doesn’t work, and this is the first time an iconset almost contains all the icons I need…
Please make the link work, Smash?
(Update) The link is working now.
speedcu
June 7th, 2009 11:39 pmgreat collection, thanks a lot!
http://www.diecastlovers.com
June 7th, 2009 11:47 pmAmazing! Thank you!
Pandjarov
June 8th, 2009 12:14 amNow that’s a great collection :)
Michael Flarup
June 8th, 2009 12:33 amThanks for featuring my stuff from again SM. :)
legs
June 8th, 2009 12:49 amHoly cow!
I ate my breakfast quicker than i managed to read this article.
Awesome and very exhaustive list.
great work.
Milan
June 8th, 2009 1:05 amExcellent. Great time to release too, right in the middle of a potentially icon-heavy design :D
Michael
June 8th, 2009 1:18 amOutstanding. Thanks.
Mugros
June 8th, 2009 1:30 amNice icon packs, but it lacks an overview of what can be used for free in commercial projects and what not.
DavidYell
June 8th, 2009 1:44 amAnother great post, fab news that so many icon sets are being released for free use. Big thanks to all the artists spending their time working on these, great work!
spritzstuhl
June 8th, 2009 1:45 amGREAT!!
Vanessa
June 8th, 2009 1:46 amThe site with ‘Fortune 500 Badges’ is not working. I mean the download is not working I test other links there and they are not working either O_O
*ed:Never mind the site is being fixed,lol
Theo Lagendijk
June 8th, 2009 1:53 amThanks! Very nice!
Zahir
June 8th, 2009 2:13 amVery cool….
Marcin
June 8th, 2009 2:40 amGreat!
I love those scatchy ones… :)
Best regards
Jan Kovařík
June 8th, 2009 2:44 amAWESOME, thanks!
Dayson
June 8th, 2009 2:44 amI loved this set… Another suggestion for future posts is put the download link as well so I can quickly download it if I like it!
Cheers!
BestBoyZde
June 8th, 2009 2:50 amGreat work, thanks to all the creators for the time ,very nice!
go ahead….
much regards from germnay
Schajee
June 8th, 2009 2:58 amI still say Fugue looks better than the Silk Set (FAM FAM FAM) for 16px icons.
Saptarshi
June 8th, 2009 3:58 amThis magazine is just AWESOME.
Mustafa
June 8th, 2009 4:29 amWow! Awesome collection!…
Hope some icon set collection(s) for Mac users… Maybe an Candybar icon & Dock collection would be good :P
Elcodigodebarras
June 8th, 2009 5:42 am116390 suscribers (by the moment) can´t be confused.
We have selected the right web magazine ; thanks to be there…
Hue
June 8th, 2009 5:43 amumm… The project Icon link is broken. But everything else is great.
Nqy_Nik
June 8th, 2009 5:49 amThats alot of icon sets for free, nice one!
Jessica M
June 8th, 2009 5:58 amReally great! There are many broken links to some icons sets though :(
OverZero.it
June 8th, 2009 6:03 amPERFECT!
Thank you.
ilz
June 8th, 2009 6:06 amhuge collection… thanks!
ostry-deXter
June 8th, 2009 6:27 amThanks!! SM icon collections always are amazing ;)
WebGyver
June 8th, 2009 7:07 amThank you very much!
Nice to have all of these icon sets in one place. The one icon set I hadn’t seen before (On Stage Icons Set) results in a 404 error. Any chance anyone could post the correct link? Or is there just too much traffic at the moment?
Keep up the good work, and thanks for all the fun links within various comments as well.
Marcis Gasuns
June 8th, 2009 7:28 amCheck out Led Webmaster Pixel icons as well, you’ve missed them in this list.
Alison Heittman
June 8th, 2009 7:51 amExcellent list, and very timely for us! Thanks so much!!
Safaa
June 8th, 2009 8:11 amSooooo Coooooooooooool
Many thanks
mikemike
June 8th, 2009 8:22 amWowsers. Now that’s a post. Thanks Vitally.
Ciesiel
June 8th, 2009 8:25 amWow! That’s a lot of icons! Cheers guys.
Mr. Giải Pháp Số
June 8th, 2009 8:39 amGreat Collection! Thanks
Jad Graphics
June 8th, 2009 10:13 amAwesome round-up of great icons that we can actually use. Thanks a lot.
Jessica Edington
June 8th, 2009 10:29 amThanks for the great resources. The Polaroid icon set was my favorite, but they spelled “StumbleUpon” wrong :(
You also mentioned any icon sets we would want to see. I am interested in icon sets related to various types of media. I am a multimedia professor, and my students are always looking for these icons for their portfolios. We need icon sets for graphic design, web design, video, sound, animation, 3D modeling and game design. Have you seen a set that includes all of these? Thanks.
Jessica
Simon Harlinghausen
June 8th, 2009 11:20 amFantastic icon sets. These are really great.
Sathish
June 8th, 2009 11:27 amWow!!! This is amazing collection! Thanks a bunch.
Echilon
June 8th, 2009 11:33 amA few sets I don’t have. Thanks.
8bitmag
June 8th, 2009 11:33 amAwesome collection!
dams
June 8th, 2009 11:34 amnice sticker icons
tasarhane
June 8th, 2009 11:41 ampretty cool icons. nice collection. thanks.
Andres Jaimes
June 8th, 2009 11:51 amawesome… thank you!
Tracy
June 8th, 2009 11:57 amExcellent round-up! Thanks!
Holly Hopper
June 8th, 2009 12:16 pmThe “Project Icon Set For Free Download” set is returning a 404 :(
Dele
June 8th, 2009 12:43 pmgreat bunch!! LOVING IT :)
Taburete
June 8th, 2009 2:11 pmFantásticos!!!!
Muchas gracias!
Faryl
June 8th, 2009 4:50 pmPerfect timing – was just looking for some social media icons & planned to check your archives! Thank you for another useful post!
Sutham
June 8th, 2009 5:03 pmawesome!
Ryan Glover
June 8th, 2009 6:51 pmThanks for the set. Should come in handy for upcoming projects.
Darren Northcott
June 8th, 2009 9:06 pmbest.roundup.ever.
Sankar
June 8th, 2009 9:57 pmCollection of entire awesome Icons at one place is excellent.
Thanks
uzeir
June 8th, 2009 9:58 pmhmm..great collection…thanks smashers….
sama creation
June 8th, 2009 10:24 pmAwesome post,
sameera
June 8th, 2009 11:09 pmThis is great
BTW seems like ‘Project Icon Set For Free Download’ link is broken
Line of Design
June 8th, 2009 11:50 pmI’ll like to see an iconset with the different artistic “medias” such as:
The analouge medias:
acryllic painting, oil painting, watercolor painting, aquarelle, pencil drawings, caryoun drawing, ink drwing, and
The digital maedias:
Photoshop painting, flash, drawing, illustratori illustrations, corell-drawing and so on…
And make both the digital and the analouge medias have the same overall look, så they can be used on the same website to showcase your projects in the various artistic medias… Such as my own site: Line of Design (danish)
Bjorn
June 9th, 2009 12:41 amHere’s the project Icon set link
Brian Reavis
June 9th, 2009 1:44 amWow guys, thanks for the feature! It was an awesome, big surprise :) Lot’s of other superb icons here too. Fabulous post.
(I made the “dead-simple social media icons”)
Michael Cerdeiros
June 9th, 2009 1:49 amWow! what a collection! Thanks so much.
Bartek
June 9th, 2009 3:06 amAWESOME, thanks!
Tom Bradshaw
June 9th, 2009 4:08 amAnother great selection, thanks very much!
razvantim
June 9th, 2009 4:39 amsimply amazing sets. thx for all the goodies :)
Jason Loucks
June 9th, 2009 5:39 amGreat post. I won’t have to really search online anymore for the icons I need for this school project. What a time saver.
Thank you guys so much for your hard work!
Graphire
June 9th, 2009 6:44 amGreat and awesome list. Smashingmag you’re absolutely amazing! My fav among those are the icons from designfreebies.org, multimedia vector icons. Simple, clear-cut and very useful icons. Thanks for featuring them.
rudionrails
June 9th, 2009 7:00 amFugue Icons (Fugue Icons) are really nice, too.
Ted
June 9th, 2009 11:59 amThis is an incredible list — thanks a lot! Smashing is proving to be a truly invaluable resource to developers who need that extra oomph in the design department.
Yan Hughes
June 9th, 2009 1:12 pmThis is beyond Awesome!! Love Love them!
Many thanks to you, Smashing Magazine and the wonderful designers!
Benedikt Roßgardt
June 9th, 2009 5:01 pmThanks! There are included some cool fonts ;-)
chris
June 9th, 2009 5:03 pmUmm it’s nice but many of these icon sets have been published before.
Hammu
June 9th, 2009 11:54 pmGood to see all the icons in a single post. Great collection:)
Neha Sharma
June 10th, 2009 12:47 amThanks for all icons!! Great Resource
Neha