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Birdies: Cute Free Twitter Icons For Your Blog

In this post we release Birdies: A Free Twitter Icon Set, a set of 12 beautiful and lovely Twitter icons. This set was designed by IconEden and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. All the icons included in the set have clean shapes and neutral colors that can be used for various contexts, from a "Tweet it" button for your blogs to desktop wallpapers.

The set is available in both pixel and EPS vector format so the icons can be rescaled to any size while retaining their original details. As usual, the icons are free for both personal and commercial projects.

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Freebie Release: Quartz Icon Set

Today we are glad to release Quartz Icon Pack, a set with 90 clean, sharp and (hopefully) useful icons for your project. This set was designed by our friend, a Romanian designer Andy Gongea especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The Quartz icon set contains 90 semi-transparent .png-icons in the resolution 64×64px.

The icons can be used without any restrictions for any type of composition – text- or graphic-based. The icons cover a wide range of designs – e-mail icons, software icons, general web application icons and blog icons. The set is free to download and use in any projects.

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

• Flavour Extended Icon Set
• “Magazeen”: Free Magazine-Look WordPress Theme
• Typography Keyboard Layout

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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 perfom 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.

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6 Free PSD/(X)HTML-Templates

We love our readers. We respect the hard work of designers and developers across the globe. And we do our best to make the web design community stronger and the Web a little bit prettier. Therefore we ask talented artists and creative professionals to showcase their skills and release something unique and beautiful as a gift to the community. And when designers agree, truly impressive works see the light of day.

A couple of weeks ago we released DelliStore, a professional CSS/(X)HTML-template with PSD-sources. In the poll and in the comments to this post our readers asked for more (X)HTML/CSS-template, so here are 6 more professional template that you can use without any restriction for your private or commerical projects. The template were designed by Templateworld and released for free especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

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Retro Toys: A Free Icon Set

Today we are glad to release "Toys", a retro icon set that was designed by Helen Gkizi and released with Smashing Magazine for its readers. The set contains 9 "toys" icons (png, 128×128px) that may come in handy in a variety of settings – e.g. in projects related to children and family.

The files are transparent PNGs, and the source file (.eps) is included as well. As always, the set is completely free and may be used for any private or commercial project without any restrictions whatsoever.

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Download “Gallery”: A Free WordPress Theme

Just recently we asked you to let us know what theme you would like us to release next. Among numerous comments we found many request for a gallery-theme that could be particularly useful for portfolios and showcases. At the very same time Christopher Wallace has been designing an advanced gallery-WordPress-theme for the design community and Smashing Magazine's audience. And today finally we are proud to release it – for free, of course.

Gallery is a beautiful, free, gallery-style Thematic child theme for WordPress, designed by Christopher Wallace especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. It is extremely flexible and can be used as a starting point for design galleries and portfolios.

Please take a look at other high-quality freebies as well:

• DelliStore: A Free Professional CSS/XHTML/PSD-Template
• "Magazeen": Free Magazine-Look WordPress Theme
• Flavours Icon Set
• Typography Keyboard Layout

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DelliStore: A Free Professional CSS/XHTML/PSD-Template

Over the last months we’ve heard numerous complaints about the lack of quality in our freebie releases. We are aware that our readers have high expectations and we try to do our best to meet them in our posts. In this post we release a beautiful high-quality (X)HTML/CSS-template (including its PSD-source) that will hopefully meet your expectations and come in handy in your projects.

This template, designed by the design agency Dellustrations and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers, is a full px-based, cross-browser-compliant (X)HTML/CSS-template (IE 6, IE 7, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome). It consists of 4 custom pages; the PSD-source is included in the release package. You may modify this template for a e-commerce web site, restaurant, pool and spa web-sites and other caters, ventures and facilities.

You may be interested in other freebies that were released on Smashing Magazine recently:

• Project Icon Set
• Flavours Icon Set
• Typography Keyboard Layout
• "Magazeen": Free Magazine-Look WordPress Theme

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Friday Freebies: Photoshop Brushes, Vector Graphics, Icons

Over the last months we focused on releases of icons and themes, so we thought that it may be useful to release Photoshop brushes and vector graphics for a change. Hence, in this post we release a set of Photoshop brushes for space effects, a set of brushes to simulate the effect of a painted canvas, a hand-drawn vector illustration set and a Moleskine icon set.

You can use the sets (except the bonus set) for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

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New Smashing Freebies For Designers and Bloggers

As you may or may not know, we love to smash freebies around. Today we are glad to release the Web Developer icons set, designed by Pedja Rusic, a WP Smashing WordPress theme, designed by Greg Johnson and a Cafe icon set, designed by Enk. All icons and the theme are available for free download and can be used without any restrictions whatsoever. Please feel free to suggest ideas for next icon sets or single icons in the comments to this post.

We have noticed Pedja Rusic from Serbia over a year ago, when we presented his icon sets in our free icons round-up. A while ago we contacted him and commissioned the design of icons dedicated to designers and developers. The icons should pay close attention to the smallest details, look original, cool and still remain recognizable.

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“Magazeen”: Free Magazine-Look WordPress Theme

We love our readers. We respect the hard work of designers and developers across the globe. And we do our best to make the web design community stronger and the Web a little bit prettier. Therefore we ask talented artists and creative professionals to showcase their skills and release something unique and beautiful as a gift to the community. And when designers agree, truly impressive works see the light of day.

Today we are glad to release Magazeen — a free advanced Wordpress-theme in a magazine-llok created by the talented WeFunction Design Agency. This bold magazine 2-col-theme was designed with the main focus being on typography, grids and magazine-look. It was created especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

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Compositio: Clean, Beautiful and Free WordPress Theme

In comments to our recent freebie releases you asked for a simple, clean and beautiful WordPress-theme; the theme should be easily customize for different purposes and in a variety of settings. We've been listening to you and we heard you: and today we are release (hopefully) exactly what you've been asking for.

In this post we release Compositio – a simple, clean and user-friendly WordPress-theme, created by talented Elena Gafita for Smashing Magazine and its readers. Compositio is a two column theme, made to for those who want to put their content at the front with a unique light blue design. Random square shapes are the defining graphics of this theme. They are used throughout the background, bringing a special rhythm to the theme.

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Smashing Retro Icon Set

Over the last few months, we have extensively covered the influence of retro and vintage style on modern Web design. We have looked at recent vintage Web designs, showcased posters and typography and presented vintage tutorials. In fact, we are confident that vintage is still in, and that many designers are experimenting with this style to achieve unusual, creative and (hopefully) effective results.

So today, we are pleased to release the Smashing Retro Icon Set, a set of 10 beautiful, high-quality "vintage" icons, created by the talented Russian design agency SoftFacade especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The set contains 10 original icons: search, sign-up, calendar, news, RSS, comments, email, ads, home and address.

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Friday Freebies: Flavours Icon Set And Cute Tweeters Icon Set

We continue to deliver fresh high-quality freebies to our readers and we continue to pursue the diversity of subjects that we are going to cover on Smashing Magazine. From the beginning of the year each icon set is supposed to be dedicated to some specific theme or topic that may turn out to be useful for your next project. Today we are releasing 2 free high-quality icon sets.

Oliver Twardowski, a graphic designer from Bonn, Germany, has put a lot of time and efforts to release a handy icon set especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. His set, aimed to help designers in their web designs and user interface designs, contains 177 icons in the resolution 48×48px. The files are available for free download as .png and .psd-sources, so you can modify the files as you wish.

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The Ultimate Collection Of Free Vector Packs

Designers love freebies that make life easier and help them create higher-quality work. Free vectors are useful, free vector packs even more so. Fortunately, there are plenty of talented graphic designers who are willing to give away their work (or samples of it) to benefit the rest of us. In this post, we feature 60 of the best and most useful free vector packs.

Many of the vectors featured here would be useful for particular styles of design and specific types of websites. Take a few moments to browse through them, and you may find something that's perfect for a current or upcoming project. Before you use any of the freebies, be sure to check the license designated by the creator to stay within the stated guidelines.

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Stationery Icons, Soccer Icons And Atlantic WordPress Theme

Last year some of our readers complained about the lack of diversity in the sets we have released in 2008. We've heard you, we came up with new ideas and we decided to offer our readers a wide variety of different sets. From now on we are going to release more specific, more practical and (hopefully) more useful icon sets — not just social icons or RSS icons.

We start 2009 with a stationery icon set, a soccer icons set and a fresh Atlantic WordPress theme. Please let us know if we are on the right track.

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Free Icons, Photoshop Brushes and a WordPress Theme

We are definitely not Santa Claus, but we love to release high-quality sets and themes for free. And, of course, we do have some beautiful and unusual and (hopefully) useful presents for the upcoming New Year's Eve.

Today we are glad to release three icon sets, one Photoshop brushes set and one exclusive WordPress-theme. A couple of more presents will be released over the next days. Happy New Year, folks!

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Smashing Christmas Icon Sets

In December we asked few designers to come up with some creative, beautiful, memorable yet usable icon sets. Some designers had a tight schedule and couldn't get work done in time, but three designers agreed and delviered their high-quality Christmas icon sets — right in time before the deadline. In this post we are glad to release three beautiful high-quality Christmas icon sets — you can use them for free without any restrictions whatsoever.

You can use all sets for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

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Light Blurs Brushes and Decoration Pack For Photoshop

Over the last few weeks, our readers have complained that we have been releasing "way too many freebies". Apparently, we have been posting "too many filler articles" containing freebies that can be found elsewhere on the Web. We would like to make it clear that we do try to release useful things, and we do try to keep the high quality of these freebies and it has never been our intention to fill our publishing schedule with freebie posts.

We are going to continue to release freebies from time to time (though not as often as we have over the last months), and we'll make sure they meet our (and your) standards of high quality. Please let us know your opinion in the comments section below and in the poll below. Thank you.

In this post we release two sets, a Light Blurs Photoshop Brushes, a set of 23 high-quality "light" brushes and Vector Photoshop Brushes Decoration Pack, a set of decoration brushes for Photoshop.

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ASCII One: A Free WordPress Theme

We released a couple of Wordpress themes over the last months. Some of them were praised, the others were torn apart, but we always tried to always offer a variety of different styles. And today is no exception.

Today we are glad to release ASCII One — a free professional Wordpress-theme created by Piotr Godek. This theme was designed with the main focus being on typography — all graphical elements are made only of characters, and it holds for visuals, too. The theme is released with and via Smashing Magazine and is released as a gift to its readers.

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iPhone PSD Vector Kit

In this post we release the iPhone Starter Kit, a set that comes with several button elements as well as six different interface options for iPhone. This pack may be useful for mobile developers and front-end designers who need a professional way to show mock-ups to clients or to work out ideas. This set was designed by Renee Rist especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sub-licensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

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