Icons are a mandatory subject matter in the daily life of programmers, bloggers, designers and software enthusiasts. And there are so many sources around, that sometimes its almost an impossible mission to find just the icon you want. You can easily spend many hours browsing through thousands of motifs, sizes and styles. Regarding free icons sets, I have to say that there is so much poor quality material out there, that it turns out to be a difficult task to purge all the garbage. The whole chore can be sometimes an entrepreneurship almost as discouraging as finding logical sense in a David Lynch film.
A friend of mine used to joke that usually programmers have bad taste (even for their clothes) and always choose efficient, but rather ugly icons for their applications. I think that thought could make an interesting pole don´t you think?
Anyhow, I have made a selection of original, stylish, beautifully designed icons so you can save clicks and have more spare time to go to the beach, look at he beach from your office window...or at least, think about the beach.
1. Yoritsuki
Hybridworks
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The detail they give to their creations is simply fascinating. I believe their pallete harmonizes with a wide array of desktop colours.
2. Free Hand Drawn Doodle
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After 2 days of googling icons, I've not seen so many hand drawn. This one is very cool.
3. MannMitDerTarnjacke
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I just love the minimal and effective pick of colours and shapes. Five stars to this one! One of my personal favourites.
3. Vidro
Mao
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4. Ecqlipse 2
Christian F. Burprich
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Design in general should have more examples like this. Sometimes I feel we are going back to barroque.
5. iConPack
Jamie Hewitt
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How about this cool crumble effect. The colours are superb.
6. Blueset
Zhukov Alexandr
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Elegant and stylish look and feel.
7. Eico One Year
Rokey
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icute.
8. OldSchool
Paul Kadysz
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I still have a radio like that one. I don´t really think my ipod would be around in 30 years. (I would hardly bet it will be intact by december!)
9. Distortion
Dryicons
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Icons and guitars are cool this way. DISTORTED!
10. Web2.0 Origami
Paddy Donnelly
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This is another personal favourite. Looking forward to see more contributions from this genius.
11. Feed me Animals
Mirjami Manninen
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Girllish, stylish... simply put, the cutest set in the list. The "feed" concept in a very original accomplishment.
12. Web 2.0 Vector
Vectorlady
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Small yet very detailed. A hot creation from a very hot author in deed:)
13. Glossy Member
Katrin Wegmann
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Far out! I want more!
14. Kidaubis
Kidaubis Design
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The detail of this guy's creations are simply awesome.
15. Charm Office
Kesen
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Other personal favorite. It brings depth and elegance. Better for dark bakgrounds.
16. Ruby
3nc
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SHINY!
17. Converse
Bruno Torres
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A rocker's delight! It even comes with clean version shoes for politically correct Neo punks.
18. Retrofukation
JG Visuals
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19. Apples Dock
Myrto Orfanoudaki
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20. Oxygen
roundbone
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21. Sketched Up
Oliver Twardowski
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22. Puck Pack Vol II
Deleket
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23. Browsing Docks
Deleket
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24. Handycons
Janko
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25. Affel
Roberto Abril
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26. Beijing 2008
Kidaubis
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27. Boxes Vista like
tpdkdesign
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28. Google & Facebook Icons
Chris Ivarson
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29. Weather Conditions
Iconbest
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30. Container Pack
Vistaicons
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31. Baggy
Paul Kadysz
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32. Red Little Shoes
Raindropmemory
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33. Nes
Ahuri
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34. Death note
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35. Cemagraphics
Cemagraphics
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36. Tom Tom
Matthijs de Ridder
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37. Antique
Nawfal
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38. Sleek XP Basic
Deleket
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39. Black Neon Aqua
ToffeNut Design
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40. Round Theme
ikon Digitale
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41. GP icons
Mesrop Janoyan
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42. Function Set
Function
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43. Mac
Lecoupdulapin
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44. Orb
Alexy Goncharenko
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45. Fine Files
Plainz Style
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46. Human O2
Oliver
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47. Pioneer Camp
Iconka
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48. Natsu
Raindropmemory
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49. Kleski
Azazel
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50. Monsters Sygma Style
Iconshock
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Last, but not least. The biggest collection of free icons on the web. Period. (Of course, I`ll have a day off for this comment.) 
May 16th
What a great collection of icon designs you have gathered here G. Piñeros! I have also stumbled along some of the ones you posted here but you have also found a few that I have missed. You have a real talent to find and locate some hidden gems. I do however totally agree with you in that I also prefer more stylish icons than the ones programmers use which are usually drab in design. That is what has drawn me to Iconshock in the first place was their amazing icon work! I can only hope you continue to weed out all the garbage and find those hidden gems we all love.
Your idea for a poll sounds pretty good to me. Count me in. Just let me know when and where to cast my vote.
May 16th
Your link for # 11 Mirjami Manninen and her Feed me Animals seems to be down.
May 16th
Hello Zandor! Thank you for saying I have a talent for something. Through the years, after so many, many, MANY kind words from my EX-girlfriends, specially at breakup time, I was begining to convince myself that the concept of “talent” was unexistent in my humanity.
Thank you again for your generous comments about my writing and Iconshock’s products. Hope i’ve saved you and the rest of users some time with my handpicked selection.
Good lluck!
G.
May 16th
Fixed. I redirected it to the page of our friends at smashing.
G.
May 18th
Pretty good selection, like Zandor I knew a lot of them but I discovered some very good ones ^^
I think that this article is a MUST for people who don’t have the will to browse for hours (days and weeks actually) deviantART, Macthemes, Wincustomize, CrystalXP and so on…
PS: most of the designers in this article have other works (be it icons or not) that are as great as the ones presented here. Among others, I’m talking about Rokey (he used to have a lot of stuff on his site: http://www.rokey.net but now it seems he has changed it, his deviantART is better), Kidaubis (http://kidaubis.deviantart.com/gallery/) and Cemagraphics (http://cemagraphics.deviantart.com/ , he had more icons like 1 or 2 years ago but obviously decided to restart from nothing for some reason).
May 18th
PS#2: I was surprised to see a set from Roundbone here, I thought I was the only one to have noticed his original icon sets
. Too bad his dA seems to be dead (it’s been like 2 years he hasn’t released anything)…
[If you want more excellent stuff guys you should go to the GUI Championships website ( http://www.guichamps.com/ ), the 2008 edition was absolutely awesome
]
May 18th
Thanks cnshck, I’m glad you liked my selection. I’ve just updated it so all of you can take a peek. Your links and suggestions are always appreciated.
October 23rd
Great Blog. These lists are incredible. Never saw this many icons in the same place.