They’re everywhere, and it’s pretty clear to the user what they mean. These are what we like to call universal icons or default icons.

Arrow pointing out of a box icons to log out of something.

“X” icons to close or exit out of something.

Arrow pointing into a cloud or out of a box icons to upload something.

Arrow pointing down into a square or cloud icons to download something.Arrow coming out of the top of a square icons to share something.Heart or star icons to favorite something.Heart or thumbs-up icons to like something.Three horizontal line icons to indicate a hamburger menu.You should immediately recognize what they represent: Icons are so ubiquitous in modern UI and apps that we don’t often don’t even have to think.Ĭonsider these icons below. Tick icons indicate that an action has been completed or saved.

They provide users with quick and recognizable visual cues that are easy to understand.įor example, lock icons indicate something is locked. In UI design and web design, icons are small graphical representations of a functionality or concept. We've intentionally kept this list as short as possible and have only included the absolute highest-quality free icon sets so you don't have to waste your time. This isn't an exhaustive list with 50 free icon sets for you to pull apart. We’ve done an extensive search for the highest-quality free icon sets for UI design and compiled them here for you in one place. Surprisingly, we found that many of the best icon sets were 100% free!Ĭhoosing a good quality icon set can be just as time-consuming as creating your own custom icons. Some were good, but we found the vast majority of icon sets lacked in quality, were inconsistent, or simply too small - usually a combination of all three.

When we were building Untitled UI v1.0 we looked at dozens and dozens of open source, free, and paid icon sets. The problem is not all icon sets are created equal. Just a quick Google search will reveal hundreds of icon sets, many of which are 100% free and open source. There is certainly no shortage of icon sets and there are many different styles of icons floating around the internet today. When it comes to modern UI design and web design, a good quality icon set is invaluable and can make or break a design.

Free app icons