From the care instructions of your clothes to website design and favicons, icons are everywhere. They help simplify communication, conveying messages at a glance without the need for words. Yet despite their widespread presence, incorporating these small visual symbols into creative work requires much precision on the designer’s part.
If you’re looking for website icons or new imagery for your work, remember that all icons in a single project should be consistent, adhering to the same visual and web design guidelines. It’s therefore best to work with one icon set that shares a unified look, guaranteeing that all of your icons will fit together.
If you can’t find all of the icons you need in just one set, invest time in handpicking icons that match in style and language, noting parameters such as line width, corner shape (sharp or round), outline or filled, and more.
Below we’ve selected 20 of our favorite icon packs and resources for your projects. They are all free, but make sure to read into each one’s licensing, as some require attribution, some are free for personal work only, and so forth. You might also want to consider the different types of files they come in. Here they are, for all of your creative needs, including to use when learning how to make a website:
01. Noun Project
Format: SVG and PNG
Total: 2M+
Launched in 2011, Noun Project is updated daily with new icons made by a global community of professional creators. These icons are formatted in SVG and PNG. It currently holds over two million icons, all of which are free, downloadable and customizable.
Free members of Noun Project are required to credit the icon’s designer in each use. For those with a paid membership, attribution is not necessary.
Format: SVG, PNG and embed CSS
Total: 1,000+
As part of Google’s Material Design resources (alongside its color palette generator, font directory and more) is this rich collection of open source icons. The icons are available in five different themes - filled, outlined, rounded, two-tone, and sharp.
03. Icons8
Format: PNG, SVG, PDF and embed HTML
Total: 140,000+
Icons8’s vast collection, all produced and designed in-house, is made up of many icon sets. This way, you can choose the style that best suits your project and work with icons within that set. The website offers complete customization before download, from changing the icon’s color, size and format, to adding text.
The icons are free, but linking to the icons8.com web domain is required for all non-paid use.
04. Softies
Format: SVG and embed
Total: 400+
Softies began as a personal project by Robbie Pearce, in which he designed an icon a day. After having accumulated hundreds of icons over the years, he released the project as an icon pack, free for both personal and commercial projects.
05. iOS Edge
Format: SVG and AI files
Total: 216
This free icon pack designed by Zach Roszczewski for Flaticons matches the Apple standards for the iOS interface. It comes in both outlined and filled versions. This free sample is part of a fuller paid set of 2,400 icons.
06. Linearicons
Format: SVG, PDF, desktop font and embed HTML Total: 170
This collection of vector line icons is the free version of a larger premium set, consisting of 1,001 icons. The icons were designed on a 20x20 pixel grid. When using the free version, be sure to link to the website for attribution, and to mention Perxis as the designer.
07. Feather
Format: SVG
Total: 282
Feather is a collection of open source icons, made by Cole Bemis. The icons are designed on a 24x24 grid with an emphasis on simplicity, consistency, and flexibility, and licensed under the MIT License. You can also find these icons as a Sketch library, on Github, and more.
08. Ionicons
Format: SVG and embed SVG
Total: 318
Ionicons is an open source collection that’s MIT licensed. The icons all come in a Material Design style as well as an iOS style, so that they look great on both Android and iOS. They are also compatible for web, and can be used as a webfont. The collection was built by the Ionic Framework team.
09. Jam
Format: SVG, JavaScript and font
Total: 800+
Jam is a set of icons designed by Michael Amprimo for web, app, and print projects. The icons are designed on a 24x24 grid with a 2 pixel stroke, and come in both outline and filled versions. The set, licensed under the MIT License, can also be found on Github.
10. Font Tonicons
Format: SVG, PNG, AI files and embed CSS
Total: 300
This CSS icon font was made with website designers and developers in mind. The icons are vectoric, and the PNG versions come in both 32px and 64px versions. Note that it’s free for personal use only. For commercial purposes, Tonicons offers various paid icon bundles.
Format: EPS and JPG
Total: 225
This collection of vector icons by Raw Pixel is royalty free, but requires a link to rawpixel.com for attribution. The icons included range in topic from science and medicine to travel, business, and more.
12. Wix
Format: Web
Total: 1,000+
If you’re in need of icons for your website building endeavors, Wix.com provides users with a diverse library of icons, vector art and badges. The icons are fully customizable and come in a variety of styles, to fit any design direction you wish to explore.
In addition, the free Logo Maker by Wix comes fully equipped with many beautiful icon options for professional logo design.
13. Multimedia
Format: SVG, PNG, and AI files
Total: 50
This set by Iconfinder contains 50 vector line icons. It was designed by Sergey Ershov and is licensed under Creative Commons, requiring that the appropriate credit be given for any use.
14. Justicons
Format: PSD
Total: 140
This collection of vector stroke icons by Radmir Mingaliev is free for both personal and commercial use.
Format: AI
Total: 108
These icons by Andy Kelly are designed with only straight lines, using a line width of 2px. The icons are a maximum of 20px in size, so they’re best used in app or web UI design.
16. Nucleo
Format: SVG and icon font
Total: 60
This icon pack by Nucleo is a test sample for the company’s much bigger paid library of 28,502 icons. The more modest free collection is comprised of outline, glyph and colored versions of each of the 60 icons, as well as additional mini icons.
17. Streamline
Format: PNG
Total: 30,000+
The Streamline icons come in three different weights (light, regular and bold), and many categories, from interface essentials to outdoors and recreation. Free website members can download up to a 48px version of the icons, but paid users enjoy access to larger files as well as additional file types of SVG and PDF.
Format: SVG, EPS, PSD and AI files
Total: 100+
These vector line icons were designed by freelance graphic designer, Mirko Monti. They are available for free for personal, open-source and commercial work.
19. Minimal Icons
Format: SVG, EPS, PNG, and Sketch, PSD, and AI files
Total: 1,800
This pack of minimal icons comes in two styles - sharp and rounded. It was designed on a 20x20 grid by Alexandru Stoica.
20. Lynny Icons
Format: EPS, PNG and AI files
Total: 450
Designed by Matthew Skiles, this icon set is free for personal and commercial use with attribution to 1001FreeDownloads.com. The icons cover the topics of electronics, eCommerce, web, weather and more.
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