Here’s a bit of backstory on why I began hunting for icons, and a few thoughts about icon design in general. If you don’t care about that, skip to the roundup.
A few weeks back, a client remarked that they didn’t like the folder icon used in a project. At first I thought nothing of changing it. I own about a bajillion icons, and how hard could it be to find or design a folder icon?
As it turns out, finding quality, versatile icons is pretty hard, and designing my own is a nightmare. I should have known it wouldn’t be easy to whip up the perfect icon, having witnessed how Dan slaved over his Ballroom icons back in the day.
So, after scouring CandyBar for an hour and coming up short, I did what any modern girl does when confronted with a problem. I tweeted about it.
As usual, Twitter saved the day. I was reminded of a handful of old classics, and introduced to a number of new, gorgeous icon sets. I promised myself and the internet that I’d do a roundup of these icons. I then proceeded to promptly set the task aside and forget about it.
These icons would’ve remained buried in Simplenote, if not for Studiomate and all-around-fantastic-designer Mike Fortress, who sent me a nudge. (Thanks, Mike!) (Also, you should go buy his gorgeous slab-serif font, Deming.)
I usually can’t stand roundup posts (“Top 45 websites using green and yellow!” “Top 30 websites by people with vaginas!”). However, I’m hoping this post will actually help interface designers build a better toolbox, and will also give some much deserved business to the tireless icon designers of the world.
RSS
Dribbble
Twitter
Flickr
Patrick Haney on August 4, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Great roundup, Meagan. I’m partial to the Geomicons and the full Pictos set, both of which are not only great for UI work, but wireframing as well. Sometimes clients need to see what an icon represents, and a little circle or box as a placeholder just doesn’t cut it. Dropping in a flat icon of a camera or a magnifying glass helps them get the idea, even if it’s not the exact icon that will end up in the final design.
Laura on August 4, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Amazing collections, thanks for sharing. It’s one of those things where you know there are hundreds of icons out there to fit what you need, but you can never find them. This is getting bookmarked, thanks! :)
Paul Mederos on August 4, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Couldn’t have written this at a better time… I was literally just looking for a solid icon set. Big fan of Eddit iPhone UI. Thanks Meagan!
Rok on August 4, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Nice list, you should also check out for this set http://www.picasicons.com
Dan on August 4, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Holy cow. Such a great list. One can never have enough simplistic icons to work with. Thank you.
Pat Dryburgh on August 4, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Great list. May I also suggest Tipogram by Tom Creighton.
Brian White on August 4, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Thanks so much. I have been hunting for icons like these forever on del.ico.us and other more filtered searches with no luck. These are great! Also I like simplicity: http://www.iconeden.com/icon/simplicity.html
Marcus Lewis on August 4, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Great set of icons. I’ll definitely be putting this up on my Fun Friday’s section!
Thanks for the list!
sara cannon on August 4, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Thanks! How Great!!! I think these are pretty too
http://blog.roamdesign.co.uk/?p=272
Meagan Fisher on August 4, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Added Picas, Tipogram, Simplicity, Helveticons, and the Roam Design icon pack. Thanks for all the comments!
Dan on August 4, 2011 at 4:12 pm
My wallet hates you.
Cesar Torres on August 4, 2011 at 4:47 pm
I’ll consider this a list of icons I have to use. Am starting at the top and working my way down. Thanks for sharing the info!
Heather on August 4, 2011 at 7:46 pm
I also like this set here: http://icondock.com/icons/sets/rocky-complete-set
Anton on August 5, 2011 at 4:01 am
hey nice post!
check out http://iconza.com/
Morphix on August 5, 2011 at 7:58 am
Hey there, thanks for mentioning us. We’re very glad and thankful!
Todd Dominey on August 5, 2011 at 8:45 am
Great list. I wish more icon designers took the time to build fonts in addition to PNG, EPS, etc. There’s a huge need for symbols/icons that can be colored/styled via CSS instead of bitmaps. I’d buy all of these if font options were part of the package.
Luke Dorny on August 5, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Very nice compendium, Meagan. Love it.
Todd makes a great point. More and more I find myself ending up needing a font for these types of things…
Marked as reference.
Paul Leibowitz on August 5, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Thanks for sharing, really nice assortment and a lot of hard work!
Jesse Fletcher on August 5, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Awesome collection! Thanks for digging all these up Meagan, I’ll have to keep these in my back pocket for future use.
Firman Firdaus on August 6, 2011 at 9:27 am
Thanks Meagan. Helveticons and Pictos are my saviour! :)
Griffin Shreves on August 6, 2011 at 9:28 am
I’m putting a vote in for seeing a round up of “Top 30 websites by people with vaginas!”The headline alone is hilarious, but a serious look at female web designers would be cool to read about.
Oh, and awesome list too!
Allie on August 9, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Bless you, Meagan! IconSweets just made some mockups, well, quite sweet, actually, and many of the others are now in my Springpad for future reference and use (when, like you, the bajillion icons on my computer come up lacking). Thank you!
Philip on August 10, 2011 at 10:53 am
I have a bunch of disorganized bookmarks with links to icon sets, but this is much easier to read and get a quick overview of. Really appreciate this.
jess on August 11, 2011 at 10:06 am
These are great! Thanks so much for putting them all in one place. Speaking of icons, thought you would enjoy this: http://grainedit.com/2011/08/03/tim-boelaars/. He has a nice owl icon in the mix, too.
jess on August 11, 2011 at 10:10 am
Here’s another link for the same fellow, with even more icons (looks like he is working on a set): http://dribbble.com/timboelaars
Vincent on August 12, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Nice list Meagan :-)
May I suggest my own minimal icons pack to make this list more complete : http://www.webalys.com/premium/design-vector-icons-library.html
Thanks !
PS : my favorite are the Geomicons than I bought, and that I use for works where I need a more human and warm look.
Hamish on August 13, 2011 at 9:32 am
Thanks Meagan! These are fantastic and I’m pretty sure will come in handy sometime soon. You had me cracking up with your “[...] people with vaginas” line.
By the way, you mentioned Simplenote. I hadn’t seen that until now. How does it compare to Evernote? (I’ve been using that for a while.)
Hemmo de Jonge on August 13, 2011 at 11:15 am
Hi Meagan, I think the minimalistic icons of Dutch icon would look great in your list.
R.Bhavesh on August 16, 2011 at 2:09 am
This is indeed a great list.
May we request to include the following two links that features total 250 free power glyphs.
http://templatic.com/news/templatic-power-glyphs-iconset-freebie
and
http://templatic.com/news/free-templatic-ecommerce-glyphs-icons
Lucy Woodman on August 16, 2011 at 2:46 am
Thank you for this! Whenever I start a new project I find myself trawling through the internet looking for good icons. This is a great collection of links all in one place – super!
Gabe on August 23, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Thanks for the roundup. This was helpful.
Rochelle Pennington on September 16, 2011 at 8:52 am
“Flat, simple icons” were exactly what I was looking for this morning! Thanks for the save.
Ray on September 20, 2011 at 5:41 pm
These are great, thanks! Also another possible inclusion: http://utilicons.com
Tom Creighton on September 22, 2011 at 9:25 am
Wow, thrilled to be listed all these other great sets! Thanks!
Josh Bryant on September 22, 2011 at 9:53 am
Just a quick note that Pictos comes in quite a bit more formats than just PNG and Font. It includes .ai, .eps, and .csh as well.
Thank you for the round up, it’s super helpful!
Nick on October 4, 2011 at 9:22 am
Great round up! Thanks for the detective work.
Matthew Buchanan on November 14, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Another vote for Dutch Icon. Really beautiful work.
Facebook URL Shortener on December 20, 2011 at 10:54 pm
These icons are just amazing, very nice collection, thanks for sharing them here.