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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 64×64px and available in both PNG. and ICO. formats.
Related Posts
You may be interested in the following related posts:
Paul Andrew is a freelance Web designer. He is chief admin for Speckyboy - Design Magazine, a Web design, Web development and graphic design resource blog.
(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...- 90 Comments
- 1
- 2September 16th, 2009 2:59 am
grreat collection, indeed!
- 3September 16th, 2009 3:21 am
Super Collections! Thx SM!
- 4September 16th, 2009 3:22 am
Very nice sets. Good job.
- 5September 16th, 2009 3:22 am
Very nice collection…i love the Webdesigner Mini Kit :)
- 6September 16th, 2009 3:25 am
Nice 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.
- 7September 16th, 2009 3:49 am
WOW, what an amazing collection…
Thanks a lot!
- 8September 16th, 2009 3:55 am
Hi’q'h? lol.
- 9September 16th, 2009 4:00 am
A great collection, Thanks guys. (You may want to look at the slight typo in the page title……)
- 10September 16th, 2009 4:12 am
Nice work on the stratocaster although the head actually looks closer to a Jaguar than a Strat.
- 11September 16th, 2009 4:16 am
You guys ROCK !
- 12September 16th, 2009 4:30 am
I love this icon collections. I will use it on my blog.
- 13September 16th, 2009 4:32 am
Fantastic 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!
- 14September 16th, 2009 4:43 am
Love these icons, and all the others posted here. Great resources.
- 15September 16th, 2009 4:47 am
Thanks again, you guys are always a great source for inspiration.
- 16September 16th, 2009 4:57 am
Thanks a lot ! Very usefull.
- 17September 16th, 2009 5:00 am
Cool! Thanks a lot!
- 18September 16th, 2009 5:05 am
Awesome !!
Should put a ‘Download full package link’ :P !
- 19September 16th, 2009 5:05 am
You guys are incredible.
- 20September 16th, 2009 5:08 am
Amazing collection. Just downloaded some of these.
- 21September 16th, 2009 5:17 am
Brilliant collection of top notch icons! Thanks :D
- 22September 16th, 2009 5:18 am
Wonderful Collections :)
- 23September 16th, 2009 5:48 am
Once again, Smashing Magazines delivers a quality collection of icons!
- 24September 16th, 2009 5:54 am
Smashing mag has done it again… an awesome collection..
- 25September 16th, 2009 5:56 am
Never liked so many in one set… lovely!!!
- 26September 16th, 2009 6:10 am
There are genius. I have to learn a lot…
- 27September 16th, 2009 6:16 am
I’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 - 28September 16th, 2009 6:50 am
Nice icons, though left-handed Stratocaster guitar messes with my mind. Just looks wrong!
- 29September 16th, 2009 7:00 am
Wow. 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!
- 30September 16th, 2009 7:30 am
2 Errors: Snow Leopard has been released, It’s ‘high’ not ‘hiqh’
- 31September 16th, 2009 7:30 am
the article title reads “HIQH quality icons”.
- 32September 16th, 2009 7:43 am
Awesome 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!
- 33September 16th, 2009 7:54 am
good looking out!
- 34September 16th, 2009 8:09 am
Awesome 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!
- 35September 16th, 2009 8:20 am
when 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.
- 36September 16th, 2009 8:39 am
Sweet, more icon collections
- 37September 16th, 2009 8:44 am
These are great!
- 38September 16th, 2009 8:48 am
This is awesome. Probably one of the better icon round-ups to date.
- 39September 16th, 2009 9:24 am
This one is probably my favorite icon set posts ever. Great stuff.
- 40September 16th, 2009 9:32 am
Awesome! Thanks SM, this roundup is great. Love the money back guarantee icons and the XP web designer’s kit.
- 41September 16th, 2009 9:59 am
thank you very much ! you guys always smashing !
- 42September 16th, 2009 10:11 am
Great job SM! Love these collections. Keep them comin’
- 43
- 44September 16th, 2009 10:21 am
OK 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
- 45September 16th, 2009 10:49 am
THESE
ARE
AWESOME.
- 46September 16th, 2009 11:17 am
Wow this is the best Icon collection i’ve ever seen. Usually you just see the same ones over and over again.
Stay Smashing!
- 47September 16th, 2009 11:55 am
Great Collections…
- 48September 16th, 2009 12:41 pm
there are some good guitar icons here: . Good for replacing the Garage Band icon.
Ben.
- 49September 16th, 2009 1:11 pm
Great List… some are going to be of great use for my next design.. Many thanks ! :)
- 50September 16th, 2009 4:37 pm
thanks.. great collection…..
- 51September 16th, 2009 5:39 pm
AAAmazing.
- 52November 18th, 2009 4:01 pm
Agreed! :)
- 52
- 53September 16th, 2009 6:09 pm
Wow, really a great high quality free icons. Never imagined they are free for download. THought this was a premium set.
- 54September 16th, 2009 6:44 pm
Thanks Share!
- 55September 16th, 2009 7:25 pm
very very nice icons… i like it
- 56September 16th, 2009 10:11 pm
That’s really a fresh collection – good job and thanks for sharing…..
- 57September 16th, 2009 10:23 pm
Hmm – 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.
- 58September 17th, 2009 12:15 am
Nice collection indeed. You’ve gotta love icon-wednesday!
- 59September 17th, 2009 12:41 am
wow, nice collection! thanx!
- 60September 17th, 2009 1:26 am
OMG! How on earth did you guys find all these?
- 61September 17th, 2009 1:26 am
Nice, just a pity that I cannot use them all somewhere :-)
- 62September 17th, 2009 4:45 am
Very nice collection, thanxs!
- 63September 17th, 2009 5:03 am
:) I love smashing ^_^ it’s always full of goodies!
- 64September 17th, 2009 6:51 am
Michael Austin: Yeah, I thought so too.
- 65September 17th, 2009 7:47 am
fantastic collection. Thanks for sharing.
- 66September 17th, 2009 8:05 am
Wow! great collection… thanks.
- 67September 17th, 2009 11:20 am
Nice icons, loads I don’t have.
- 68September 17th, 2009 5:57 pm
Thank you very much for this. As an avid graphics designer, this will be extremely helpful. Thanks again.
Corrado Coia
- 69September 17th, 2009 6:34 pm
It is very useful. Thank you.
- 70September 17th, 2009 8:55 pm
Very nice and useful…
Keep Rocking…
Thank You… - 71September 17th, 2009 9:27 pm
lovely collection. thanks :-)
- 72September 18th, 2009 2:18 am
Thanks SM, I think is the best icon round-up so far
- 73September 18th, 2009 7:14 am
Hey! those strats are all southpaw.
- 74September 18th, 2009 1:52 pm
Wow, that’s one of the best collections I’ve seen in a while.
- 75September 18th, 2009 3:33 pm
perfect collection! thanks..
- 76
- 77September 19th, 2009 8:11 pm
WOW. I want all!!
- 78September 20th, 2009 6:31 am
That’s an awesome collection TY!
- 79September 20th, 2009 1:26 pm
a good post, some icons set are really fantastic, and so fabulous for every site!
- 80September 20th, 2009 6:16 pm
so good icons,thks a lot……
- 81September 21st, 2009 2:56 am
tnx a lot
great icon packs , It’s very useful for me… - 82September 23rd, 2009 5:36 am
very useful for ingress design knowledge…………Thanks!
- 83September 30th, 2009 6:07 am
ALL Very nice Design I Like it….
- 84October 2nd, 2009 5:30 am
thanks! Very nice and useful collection!
- 85October 4th, 2009 3:31 pm
Great Collection
Thanks alot - 86October 7th, 2009 7:47 am
So great…… thank you very much and CONGRATULATIONS to all the creators !!!
- 87October 22nd, 2009 3:36 am
These things are really helpful.Awesome Creativity.
Thanks to creators for their Creativity - 88October 25th, 2009 9:58 pm
Great Icons! Can we use it on our websites ?
- 89October 31st, 2009 6:25 pm
the icons list are great. look beautiful. thanks
- 90November 6th, 2009 2:05 pm
very nice, I will use; :)
- 00
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Some 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!