It is very important for a graphic designer to know where to download free icons and other quality resources including fonts, images, etc…
Icons and Images are essential requirement for every website and creating new and own custom icons for every new project is time-consuming and not a good idea as well. Yes for images all the websites will need new ones with fresh ideas.
Now a days where almost every website development project is having deadlines, designers do not have that much time to create icons from scratch. And then the best idea is to find free design assets like icons.
So the best idea is to download free icons which are available readymade, it can be also time consuming as there are plenty of websites offering free icons and images. So here I like to share some of my favorite websites I often visit for my icon requirements and to download free icons.
1. IconFinder
You can download both premium and free icons according to your need from this website.
2. Freepik
Icons on this site is totally for free but you will need to attribute the image or vector to its author every time you use their resources.
3. Web Designer Depot
Along side with great content on website design WebDesignerDepot also offering free stuff. This is also a good resource to get free icons.
4. Softicons
You can download icons set from Softicons freely for personal use. You can find great set of icons here for commercial use as well.
5. Icon Archive
This site is having well organized and categorized list of icon sets. Icon Archive is a professional tag based icon search engine and a place to download amazing icons.
6. Iconmonstr
This site is also having great icon sets to offer and it can be downloaded easily as well by just agreed to their license terms.
I also came across other sites as well but never tried downloading from there because every time I found icons from the sites listed above. But sites mentioned below are also interesting.
IconsPedia – Download free PNG icons and icon packs from IconsPedia
DryIcons – Download vector graphics for free or with extended license from DryIcons
FindIcons – Search and download free icons from FindIcons
TheyMakeIcons – Download free icons from TheyMakeIcons
EasyIcon – Search through large database of icons from EasyIcon
IconDeposit – Download free icons, icon sets or PSDs from IconDeposit
IconsEtc – Download free as well as paid icons from IconsEtc
All the sites listed above are having wide variety of free icons and you can use in your own websites. Some icon sets are free, some with creative common license, some for personal and professional use. Do not forget to take a look on that as well because you will need to give attribution to the creator.
I also must appreciate the efforts these designers made in creating great icons and allowing as freebies.
Above list is not complete by any means and there may be several more sites offering great free icons. Suggestions are welcome with comments and I will add it into the list.