A Baker’s Dozen Free Icon Resources

There are a variety of reasons why we blog. Some do it as an extension of their passion about a particular subject. Others blog to connect with people about a specific cause. Still others do it because it's the cool thing to do and they're having fun with it.

Companies do it to enhance their brand exposure. And, along the way, many bloggers consider the possibility of making money as a contributing factor … to some extent or another.

Regardless of your specific objectives for blogging, it is clearly a modern form of communication. And, beyond your primary content, user-friendly design should simplify access for your visitors.

That's where images, such as icons, are quite useful. They reduce complexity by enhancing visual recognition processing as a component of a graphical user interface.

Granted image usage is both a heuristic endeavor and a matter of personal preference. But, a site with only text just doesn't have the same appeal as one with stylish and limited use of graphics.

Icons enhance the readability of navigation menus and item lists. For a user-centered site, they should be suggestive of the functionality with which they are associated … as metaphors for the text.

And, placement of larger graphics on a page serve to break up content into digestible sections in a similar manner to paragraph separations. Additionally, they're helpful in drawing attention to specific content and for calls to action.

So … without further ado … today … we present some of the resources we discovered that offer free, high-quality icons which you can use to embellish your blog. Most of these are in the PNG format. But, web icons can be in ICO and GIF format too as these also support background transparency.

• IconArchive.com presents 1,300+ grouped icon sets and over 200,000 individual icons. Of course, a search capability is included.
• IconLet.com is a search facility offering access to thousands of icons.
• FamFamFam Silk Icons is one of the more popular matching sets. It contains over 700 16×6 pixel icons in PNG format.
• Fugue Icons is another popular set. This mammoth collection of 3,000+ icons features variations of many items. Attribution is requested for free usage.
• Bitcons contains 3,000+ icons. They're arranged in sets … first by file format (GIF or PNG) … then by color scheme … and finally by size (16×16, 32×32, and 64×64).
• The RRZE Icon Set offers hundreds of icons. Each one is available in several sizes. The collection is arranged alphabetically.
• Mini Icons 2 is a set of 100+ 10×10 grayscale icons.
• Tango! Icon Library offers 200+ icons … each in 3 sizes … 16×16, 22×22, and 32×32.
• Marco's Web Control Icons offers 11 icons … each in 4 colors and 3 sizes … 16×16, 24×24, and 32×32.
• IcoJoy.com offers 60 24×24 colorful icons in four shades.
• DryIcons.com offers numerous grouped sets. Commercial licenses are also available.
• The Crystal Clear collection offers dozens of topical icons in the 128×128 size.
• And, MicroButtons is a collection of scores of textual iconic buttons.

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