"50 Most Beautiful Icon Sets Created in 2008"

[PhilB66]

50 Most Beautiful Icon Sets Created in 2008 (via Download Squad)



[edited to add image]

[mouser]

nice find 

[skybright]

Oh what a wonderful find.   I have to admit I am an icon junkie.  These are top notch.

[nosh]

Those pigs are TO DIE FOR!!!   
Thanks!

I have to admit, this caught my eye too...



LOL!

[ewemoa]

Yeah, I have a hard time imagining that it escaped the creator...

[Deozaan]

I really like the Liquidicity icon set(s).

Some of them toward the end only seemed to have 1 single "icon" so I'm not sure how they're called icon sets. Also, almost none of them appeared to be in .ico format, so they're not even really icons. They're just images.

[app103]

Also, almost none of them appeared to be in .ico format, so they're not even really icons. They're just images.

-Deozaan (March 21, 2009, 12:46 AM)

.ico is a Windows icon format. Other OS's can use those png images for their desktop icons.

[Deozaan]

Also, #48 hasn't even been created yet, so it shouldn't qualify for the list ("created in 2008").

And, come on. A paperclip? That's one of the most beautiful icons of 2008? Clippy^w? That's a joke, right?

[fenixproductions]

For me #2 is joke because there is nothing more than what is shown*!

It's the matter of terminology but I refuse to call "icons set" something with less than 20 usable icons.

*) probably applies for other packs too.

[masu]

nice link thanks

[cmpm]

if they were not posted no one would have any of them
thanks for the post Phil
 
there's some i like and would use
some i just like
and some i wouldn't use
not liking one or any of them don't matter

[Eóin]

Fenix are you not being a bit harsh, a set is more than one. And I don't really mean that in a nit picky technical sense of a set (which can actually even be empty ) but I mean 4 or 5 icons with a similar theme could be more than adequate for someone's purposes. That surely therefore qualifies as an 'Icon Set'.

Anyway Phil thanks for link

[fenixproductions]

2Eóin
I don't consider it as useless. It's just the matter of terminology (pack < 20, set >= 20 .

Maybe I am harsh but I've got about 35k files here which can be described as icons and it's hard to find groups with less than my estimated value. Well, being honest: there are packs with ex. 12 icons BUT they are delivered in so many different formats (ICO, GIF, BMP, PNG) and sizes that my rule hardly applies.

The only situation I can say it's not worth to be downloaded is to give only one size of images because you can't use it widely. Even if your system supports scaling down (with nice antialiasing), 256x256 resized to 16x16 (or even 32x32) gives mess and you can just forget about "style". For many operating systems official guidelines recommend to provide at least three sizes for icons (MacOS X - 16, 32, 512; WinXP - 16, 32, 48; Vista - 16, 32, 48, 256; Gnome -16, 24, 48, 96; KDE - 16, 32, 48).

In how many places you can use icons in good looking way if they offer one resolution only? Docks, perhaps file browsers (if you like BIG symbols) and ...?

[Paul Keith]

I have a different criticism with these icons. Why is it that the often picked beautiful icons are either Mac 3d looking or some sort of real life object variation like stickers and origamis or some overtly minimalistic design? (Can you imagine a doodle being considered most beautiful in any other art form from a purely visual point?)

It's like there's a one track mind in what is considered beautiful icons yet time and time again, I try to imagine trying these icons out and they destroy the simplicity of the original icons.

I'm talking about when I change the Firefox skins, Media player skins, Windows icon screens... often times these icons stand out too much and become near worthless because they're not even eye-relaxing, they're often eye-candy. I believe one of the old DC podcast also complained about these types of designs but with focus more on the then WinAmp skins.

I'd create my icons if I have any idea how to design one (rather than hack one through an image) but why is it so hard to find a list of beautiful icons that are actually beautiful because they belong rather than because they're artsy fancy? I mean even the Opera icon there looks more horrible than the default Opera icon and that icon had so much complaints to it already. /end rant

[f0dder]

It's nice that people make their work available for free, but... I think most of those icon sets kinda suck. But that's because I like nice-and-simple/stylish . The origami set is kinda cute, but not something I'd use; novel idea though.

#15 (Liquidicity) - nice and stylish.
#22 (Circular Icons) - looks good, but only 16x16 available?

[cmpm]

http://ico.bradleygill.com/advanced.php

i can't upload a .ico file
but that first site posted will make any of these images into an icon

i'm using zapr so you can download it direct from my desktop

these images can be made 16x16

http://cman44.zapr.com/a2691fe167c56043F