Fresh Free High-Quality Icon Sets
The most important aspect of designing an individual icon is that it has to be instantly recognizable, you have to know its function, and you need to know exactly what it is. If you are designing a set, the actual design becomes a lot harder, the designer has to face two initial challenges: each icon they design has to be individual and distinctive from the other, and, they also have to have similar features to show that they are related, completing the set. Not an easy task.
Perhaps that is why we love those small indispensible graphical images so much, it’s an appreciation of the hard work, creativity and talent of the designer. And to think, all those hours spent in front of a laptop crafting these little marvels, and then, allowing everyone else to download them for free. To all icon designers we say: “thank you”.
In this post we present a round-up of fresh high-quality icons that are available for free download and (sometimes only for personal) use. Please make sure to read license agreements before using icons in your designs – they can change from time to time.
You may be interested in the following related posts:
e-Commerce Icons
Money Back Guarantee Icon Set (registration is required)
100 % Money Back Guarantee Vector Icon Set. The set contains 3 versions: 30 day – 60 day and 90 day.
Open Source Icons – (37signals)
10 Free High-Quality E-Commerce Icons
Credit Card Icons
22 Credit Card Icons that are perfect for your sites.
Useful Icons and Vectors
Daily Exhaust: Hand & Arrow Icons
The Webdesigner Sketchup Icons
Web Buttons Vector
Compilation of the free web button vectors and elements – useful for wireframing and prototyping!
500+ Free Vector Traffic Signs
Packaging Vector Pack
This Vector Freebie Pack is created by Ian Yates and is available exclusively from Vectortuts+. If your looking for high quality graphics to mock up your next client presentation with, then check out these packaging graphics.
Exclusive Stationery Vector Pack
This new Vector Freebie Pack is created by Ian Yates. If you are looking for high quality graphics to mock up your next client presentation with, then check out these graphics.
Simple and Minimal icons
Free iPhone Toolbar Icons
Icons designed specifically for iPhone developers, available for free for anyone to use commercially under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license.
Glyphish
Designed and carefully optimized for use on toolbars and tab bars in iPhone apps, these icons are also perfect for Android apps, websites, t-shirts, tattoos and more.
A travel and business vector pack
Characters so far
35 very original and eccentric characters.
Beautiful Icons
Philippe Starck Icons
Philippe Starck icons for Windows, Mac OSX, Linux.
Snow Leopard Icon
The new version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, was just released, so the designer decided to celebrate it with a new artwork. Download the Snow Leopard Wallpaper as well!
Free Cute Furry Monster Icons
“I’ve put together a little family of monsters, available for free download in the form of icons. Each monster can be found in PNG, ICNS and ICO filetypes for use on your Mac, PC or for inclusion in your website designs.”
LiveJournal turns 10
Anniversary edition icons set, LiveJournal is celebrating its 10th Anniversary.
Vector Kitchen Icons
Vector Kitchen Icons – 25 different examples of kitchen stuff created in funny cartoon style. Set include: teapot, knifes, saucepan, pot, frying pan, plates, cups, microwave oven, forks, kitchen-range and so on. Soft gradients and colors, smooth contours, creative shapes.
Desktop & GUI Icon Sets
Generic Applications
This icon set is released under a special license which will allow software developers to use this set of 7 icons in their projects.
Bevel and Emboss
Ever wondered how are all these glossy looking icons made? This is not a tutorial how to make them, as there is a lot of these out there, this is a fully editable PSD source you can download for free and use them for your projects (commercial and non-profit) or to see how this look is achieved.
32px icons set
A simple set of icons, available only in the resolution 32×32px, only in the iContainter format.
GiNUX
There are 64 icons in this set, all are 64x64px and available in both PNG. and ICO. formats.
Related Posts
You may be interested in the following related posts:
The Dude
September 16th, 2009 2:46 amSome great icon sets there – randomly I have used a few on my site in the past.
Love the Strat set – just wish I had somewhere I could use them! Keep em comin SM!
Tschai
September 16th, 2009 2:59 amgrreat collection, indeed!
Sal Azad
September 16th, 2009 3:21 amSuper Collections! Thx SM!
rafi.pl
September 16th, 2009 3:22 amVery nice sets. Good job.
Andre
September 16th, 2009 3:22 amVery nice collection…i love the Webdesigner Mini Kit :)
Keri
September 16th, 2009 3:25 amNice collection there, will no doubt use some of these in the future.
Not important in the slightest but the Nikon Camera one appears twice for some reason.
legs
September 16th, 2009 3:49 amWOW, what an amazing collection…
Thanks a lot!
Ömer Uzun
September 16th, 2009 3:55 amHi’q'h? lol.
Dom Ioanna
September 16th, 2009 4:00 amA great collection, Thanks guys. (You may want to look at the slight typo in the page title……)
John Faulds
September 16th, 2009 4:12 amNice work on the stratocaster although the head actually looks closer to a Jaguar than a Strat.
kattiChicha
September 16th, 2009 4:16 amYou guys ROCK !
Simca
September 16th, 2009 4:30 amI love this icon collections. I will use it on my blog.
Dennis
September 16th, 2009 4:32 amFantastic article and very comprehensive resource list. One of the best and NEWEST!! Keep up the good work guys. I can’t wait to get your book here in Italy!
Josh Tummel
September 16th, 2009 4:43 amLove these icons, and all the others posted here. Great resources.
Bill Lord
September 16th, 2009 4:47 amThanks again, you guys are always a great source for inspiration.
meuledor
September 16th, 2009 4:57 amThanks a lot ! Very usefull.
Abhijeet
September 16th, 2009 5:00 amCool! Thanks a lot!
Vincent Ouellet
September 16th, 2009 5:05 amAwesome !!
Should put a ‘Download full package link’ :P !
Miguel
September 16th, 2009 5:05 amYou guys are incredible.
Syed Balkhi
September 16th, 2009 5:08 amAmazing collection. Just downloaded some of these.
Richard Reddy
September 16th, 2009 5:17 amBrilliant collection of top notch icons! Thanks :D
Venkatesh
September 16th, 2009 5:18 amWonderful Collections :)
Joshua Sortino
September 16th, 2009 5:48 amOnce again, Smashing Magazines delivers a quality collection of icons!
bs.kishore
September 16th, 2009 5:54 amSmashing mag has done it again… an awesome collection..
Schajee
September 16th, 2009 5:56 amNever liked so many in one set… lovely!!!
Mladen
September 16th, 2009 6:10 amThere are genius. I have to learn a lot…
vinz
September 16th, 2009 6:16 amI’d like to suggest vectors icons i made a few time ago…. There are several usual bitmap icons, vectorized :
http://www.reticula.fr/index.php?page=vector
chopeh
September 16th, 2009 6:50 amNice icons, though left-handed Stratocaster guitar messes with my mind. Just looks wrong!
onepack
September 16th, 2009 7:00 amWow. this is great stuff. I love your great work to look this up for us. I will definately buy the smashing book! It’s good and you guys deserve to be succesful!
Jack Griffiths
September 16th, 2009 7:30 am2 Errors: Snow Leopard has been released, It’s ‘high’ not ‘hiqh’
stevenlac
September 16th, 2009 7:30 amthe article title reads “HIQH quality icons”.
Jon
September 16th, 2009 7:43 amAwesome post! Usually I end up having to create my own icons like on my portfolio, but Its awesome that you continue to give sources for inspiration!
ilz
September 16th, 2009 7:54 amgood looking out!
Jon
September 16th, 2009 8:09 amAwesome post! Usually I end up having to create my own icons like on my portfolio, but Its awesome that you continue to give sources for inspiration!
Meat Mangler
September 16th, 2009 8:20 amwhen did the term “icon” and high resolution vector graphic become intertwined?
half of those are graphics you would use on a full page print spread, or some home page advertisement…
i dont know. not impressed.
andrewthong
September 16th, 2009 8:39 amSweet, more icon collections
whalen
September 16th, 2009 8:44 amThese are great!
Jad Graphics
September 16th, 2009 8:48 amThis is awesome. Probably one of the better icon round-ups to date.
Mark
September 16th, 2009 9:24 amThis one is probably my favorite icon set posts ever. Great stuff.
Michael
September 16th, 2009 9:32 amAwesome! Thanks SM, this roundup is great. Love the money back guarantee icons and the XP web designer’s kit.
bara
September 16th, 2009 9:59 amthank you very much ! you guys always smashing !
Batfan
September 16th, 2009 10:11 amGreat job SM! Love these collections. Keep them comin’
Michael Austin
September 16th, 2009 10:21 amOK so any one else think the live journal set looks like a bunch of bank robbers with stocking on their head? look at the one to the right really!
Michael Austin
September 16th, 2009 10:21 amOK so any one else think the live journal set looks like a bunch of bank robbers with stocking on their head? look at the one to the right really! interactive artist Michael Austin
hey
September 16th, 2009 10:49 amTHESE
ARE
AWESOME.
Brett Favre
September 16th, 2009 11:17 amWow this is the best Icon collection i’ve ever seen. Usually you just see the same ones over and over again.
Stay Smashing!
Venkat
September 16th, 2009 11:55 amGreat Collections…
Ben
September 16th, 2009 12:41 pmthere are some good guitar icons here: . Good for replacing the Garage Band icon.
Ben.
Enk.
September 16th, 2009 1:11 pmGreat List… some are going to be of great use for my next design.. Many thanks ! :)
kobs
September 16th, 2009 4:37 pmthanks.. great collection…..
JoetheFunkyAnimator
September 16th, 2009 5:39 pmAAAmazing.
Ivan Brezak Brkan
November 18th, 2009 4:01 pmAgreed! :)
Jonath Lee
September 16th, 2009 6:09 pmWow, really a great high quality free icons. Never imagined they are free for download. THought this was a premium set.
Guubir
September 16th, 2009 6:44 pmThanks Share!
yoxx
September 16th, 2009 7:25 pmvery very nice icons… i like it
Sravan
September 16th, 2009 10:11 pmThat’s really a fresh collection – good job and thanks for sharing…..
Mike Knight
September 16th, 2009 10:23 pmHmm – Nothing new here. I get tired of seeing the same old icons and graphics all over the web.
Come on Smashing Mag. Feature things we have not seen before.
Chris
September 17th, 2009 12:15 amNice collection indeed. You’ve gotta love icon-wednesday!
Tate
September 17th, 2009 12:41 amwow, nice collection! thanx!
Lucy
September 17th, 2009 1:26 amOMG! How on earth did you guys find all these?
spritzstuhl
September 17th, 2009 1:26 amNice, just a pity that I cannot use them all somewhere :-)
Felipe
September 17th, 2009 4:45 amVery nice collection, thanxs!
Hayat
September 17th, 2009 5:03 am:) I love smashing ^_^ it’s always full of goodies!
Brendon Kozlowski
September 17th, 2009 6:51 amMichael Austin: Yeah, I thought so too.
divinefusion
September 17th, 2009 7:47 amfantastic collection. Thanks for sharing.
Sean
September 17th, 2009 8:05 amWow! great collection… thanks.
Echilon
September 17th, 2009 11:20 amNice icons, loads I don’t have.
Corrado Coia
September 17th, 2009 5:57 pmThank you very much for this. As an avid graphics designer, this will be extremely helpful. Thanks again.
Corrado Coia
holy2050
September 17th, 2009 6:34 pmIt is very useful. Thank you.
Damodharan
September 17th, 2009 8:55 pmVery nice and useful…
Keep Rocking…
Thank You…
anisha
September 17th, 2009 9:27 pmlovely collection. thanks :-)
Jesus Herman
September 18th, 2009 2:18 amThanks SM, I think is the best icon round-up so far
Allen
September 18th, 2009 7:14 amHey! those strats are all southpaw.
Aaron
September 18th, 2009 1:52 pmWow, that’s one of the best collections I’ve seen in a while.
Ozan
September 18th, 2009 3:33 pmperfect collection! thanks..
Mitja
September 19th, 2009 1:47 amIf anyone needs some small simple icons, here’s another free set…
maq
September 19th, 2009 8:11 pmWOW. I want all!!
Ekrem Büyükkaya
September 20th, 2009 6:31 amThat’s an awesome collection TY!
aledesign
September 20th, 2009 1:26 pma good post, some icons set are really fantastic, and so fabulous for every site!
leaveoff
September 20th, 2009 6:16 pmso good icons,thks a lot……
Sasan
September 21st, 2009 2:56 amtnx a lot
great icon packs , It’s very useful for me…
umesh
September 23rd, 2009 5:36 amvery useful for ingress design knowledge…………Thanks!
Rameexgfx
September 30th, 2009 6:07 amALL Very nice Design I Like it….
Alia Karibskaya
October 2nd, 2009 5:30 amthanks! Very nice and useful collection!
Shoaib
October 4th, 2009 3:31 pmGreat Collection
Thanks alot
thanks
October 7th, 2009 7:47 amSo great…… thank you very much and CONGRATULATIONS to all the creators !!!
Shankar Ganesh
October 22nd, 2009 3:36 amThese things are really helpful.Awesome Creativity.
Thanks to creators for their Creativity
Ashish Gaikwad
October 25th, 2009 9:58 pmGreat Icons! Can we use it on our websites ?
customicondesign
October 31st, 2009 6:25 pmthe icons list are great. look beautiful. thanks
gabriel
November 6th, 2009 2:05 pmvery nice, I will use; :)
Jessy
December 2nd, 2009 1:10 amThank you for putting together such a great collection!
It’s Amazing how Smashing Magazine contributed to the web.
I have linked to you guys from my blog
Ondaweb
December 15th, 2009 7:48 amNice colection! Fun, cute and very functional. Cheers.
Manu Parashar
December 29th, 2009 10:10 amThe icons collection is pretty awesome .. will try to use them somewher thanks a ton
Emmanuel
January 19th, 2010 3:10 pmAwesome Icons, Just downloaded a few, Planning to use them in my next blog design. :)
janezhou
January 25th, 2010 1:28 amNice work! i like very much!
stylee
March 8th, 2010 11:34 pmthanks thanks enjoy
ana
August 3rd, 2010 11:05 pmDesktop & GUI Icon Sets
Gnome Icon Theme
Are these icons free for commercial use?
Thanks!
Animation Institute
August 25th, 2010 4:37 amgood icons..
Spyros
September 26th, 2010 6:11 amBrilliant as usual.
Keep them coming ;)
Dreb
December 5th, 2010 3:29 pmI have Smashing Magazine fever. Can’t stop shopping around. Lotsssss of good stuff down here.