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Essential icons
Icon essentials... here's some we consider to be, purely subjective offcourse... but browse some more links pages over there and get lost... you're addicted (no, we ain't got no cure).
 
AiconZ AiconZ has loads of system icons. In particular the newer sets are great quality (very hightech), but have a look at the "glyphs" too. Here's someone who knows how to create a clear, simple symbol in limited space! May not be of immediate use, but when designing/skinning, a great reference!


Beagle1104 Are you hungry, he asks ?! I wasn't, but now I am. Everybody who thought Hide (Pixture Studio) was the only one who could do food that way, meet Beagle1104. An immense library of tasty items, technically outstanding - you can almost smell them (thanks Lynne for digging this one up for us :)!


BSH You've seen those! The original "glassies" by Layne Karkruff are around... But their home's at Blue Sky Heart Graphics and that's also where you need to go for the complete archives of these never equaled gems for your desktop. To find some (..) "Desktop Consoles" (wallpapers) too!


Dave Brasgalla Dave Brasgalla, member of the IconFactory for a while now, perfectioned his style over the years. He could and should be considered the master when it comes to portrait icons, sorta specialized in illustrating stories, be it Labyrinth, Star Wars, anything. He does the hightech stuff, for sure, but there's a couple of sets with a deep romantic touch... Oh, and somewhere near the Iconfactory still stands the third PixelHaus, with some personal goodies. Also, there's dotico.com now, containing Windows versions of the factory's icons!
Copland A while ago |copland| stopped icon creation, but the available sets are still among the best system replacements available. Always clear, recognized in an instant, these are the standard all other system icon creators have to compete with. While these images are mirrored all around the web (with probably outdated versions..), why not visit the archive he left online (is that some live there) ?!

Cubelab Yes, those are BeOS icons. Looking great mmm ? They're available now for Windows too: bold, copland style, strong. Among those a some studies on shapes and colors, with awesome results. 1000+ Icons formerly going unknown, ready for your desktop ;) - recommended to download them all.


Dark Project Finally, a fresh, quality Windows icon site. Well, great designs in several routines, but check the icon page. Major attraction, the 16x16 glyph sets! Skilled, unexpected subjects (mini-robots, country views), hundreds of possible uses for them. 2003 is gonna be the year of a lot of system sets, promise ;).


Digital Garage Into cars & related gear (?!), the Digital Garage got it all, get some chrome folders (good!) or other hotrod stuff. Unique are the good 48 x 48 versions! Also, fully up to date with XP (hey, this guy did the icons for MicroAngelo!).



D.O.T. Studio Hightech, best in the genre, period! D.O.T. Studio creates excellent icons, with a metal look and neon glow, lately furnished with a destinct yellow chrome. There are cursors and wallpapers to match the schemes too. Moving, hoping the link will redirect soon.



Ed's house of Icons Ed's house of Icons hosts some original and lots of rescued sets on comics, Startrek and more. Also there's some official conversions of Iconfactory icon sets, accompanied with matching WindowBlinds scheme (originally kaleidoscope schemes).



Etherbrian In long forgotten webdays, Ikthusian was there and became one of the first masters of icons... when gone there was Etherknot, specialist in roughpixeled icon crafting. Now we've got EtherBrian, who moved out of his Blue Magnetic Web Dynamo to a new .com, and all can relax, it's all still there!


Glitschka Faces. Funny faces, angry faces, weird faces. Cool faces and some more, a site that has loads more to offer and in general is a "Carnival for Your Eyes". Tickling the retina :).




Gort How 'bout "Gort" !? His icons are strange, strong, they rule! Forrest Walter makes the icons explode, and the descriptions(/names) are the catharsis... ok, they just make me lauch, hard sometimes... I've come to fear the "AngryGuyInBunnySuit" and pity the green thing on "BadDayInMonsterland"... Gamers.com recognized them for what they're worth, bought them. He's done some more work for them (just register at Gamers and wade through the id-icons - no conversion possible, sizes are 36 x 36...). But now PixelPalooza winner Vol. 5 is finally done (XP versions)!
Hell's Half Acre At Hell's Half Acre you'll find some bold icons, very well done, on different subjects, like fairy-tales, Powerpuff girls, Central American culture, Egypt and much, much more... The "pixhell" series present a more conceptual approach, like a feuilleton from pixtown.



IconStreet At IconStreet, by Pierre Cavanna, there's system sets, but only quality. Ports and conversions (only the best), but a couple of really good original sets too! You'll have to have a look, at least, when searching for a good replacement set.



Ilicon It's a lady. Lots of her icons reflect that - I'm not and should respect that (I do)... but I'm a sucker for strong, rude icons. Still, the lady proves me wrong. Ilona Melis at "Ilicon" has done some sets... classy, strong, mythical (subject: art, myth) that show she's a match to any angry man...


Iron Devil Iron Devil has many, many icons, in very different styles. Main topics: guitars, motors, travelling, but anything goes, really. Please check all, 'cause you might miss some great ones (the IconPlant!).



Jun Jun has a bit of everything. Good system sets in different styles and don't forget to check his Animal and Stationary sets! Not much updating anymore (last update jan. '99), but they still show up, sign of quality...



Kaos Kaos (formerly Elephantastic, formerly IconPlanet member, backing up at IconCow, part of Pseudoroom for a while and going through lots and lots of designs...) is one of the masters of the bold outline, kinda rough style, dark and moody, crazy subjects, great! His icons have not been available for years, but he keeps promising he'll we back, and we try to believe it ;). Yay, he's back! For now, only with some recent icons, though...

kicstore An excellent representatative of the bold, clear Japanese style. In the line of (gone) Ekubo, these sets set themselves apart by their clear lines and symbols, but also by the soothing, easy on the eyes colorschemes. Not much people can get away with using purple, this artist can.


Kumazo A very unique, colourful and dissolute style, Kumazo has. No straight line anywhere, still, objects presented very clear - may be that bright coloring :) Now with filetypes & cursors, ready to change any icon on your system. Check out his latest, most cool design ever - it's where art and cute meet, stunning!


Lindkvist Andreas Lindkvist is an artist who also made 'some' weird, but oh so appealing icons (and fonts, but no freeware available right now).




LINEstudio It's an ongoing experiment. There's this 32 x 32 grid, and just a few ways to get some shape shown, looking a bit 3D... LINEstudio explores the limits and has allready discovered some great concepts for system sets - blockOS being the one developed most, makes a great change.


maumau Wow, I miss Ekubo :(. But here's an excellent representative of the bold Japanese style! Work by MAU looks easy, but it just isn't. Characterizing it as kidcons is too easy, it takes a clear eye to just display what's essential. A real master.



Mikworks Mikworks made a name for itself with soccer icons - shirts, logo's and foremost, portraits. Very realistic, yet with a bold outline and a specific color scheme. There's still a lot of those skilled icons available (though hundreds of cool icons just fell over the edge...). But can we get your attention at the latest, more "thematic", sets, like idol, leaves and almasy. A real artist at work, following his own themes. Colors are natural, design is intuïtive, soft touch, hard to describe, but never done before.
Motion Studio There are some very complete and beautiful sets at Motion Studio, 'bout Monopoly, chairs, and lots of Italian culture. Including desktops!




MOZCO !GARASH! How much life can you get in an icon ? MOZCO !GARASH! is king of realistic pixeldrawing. Still, they're nothing like photographs, they're just very real, vivid colors and with a bold outline. His pages haven't been updated for more than a year, but make sure you don't miss these (...).


one-button mouse The Farmer Dan-set is a classic, but there's much more good icons & pics at one-button mouse. Beautiful design!




Pardon My Icons How far does your scanner reach ? Not this far. Jeffrey Zeldman adds his disturbed mind and the icons are gone - further... yes, these are scanned photographs, images, etc, but the Zeldman filter is still not commercially available. Until then, Pardon My Icons is your solution for a real differing desktop.


PixelPress The PixelPress deserves a grand winners prize of whatever just because of his 'Utility Knives'; they're good! As is most of his older work - clean, straight 256-colored icons with a nice, specific color scheme. Pity most of it is shown on a "hidden" page. Gary Gehiere is onto new work, some 32-bit, mostly very good too; but don't forget to check the older sets.


Pixture Studio Hide's icons are true mastership. No item he can't catch! He stored them at Pixture Studio. Originating on the Mac, he's got some iMac stuff etc offcourse, but main sets are about eating and drinking. That's not one bag of chips, no, that's a set dedicated to all varieties of a donut, or tools in the American kitchen, Japanese sweets,.. it's immense, really.


Ra[ool] Consider Ra(ool) the grafitti artist among all these. Strong lines, straight colors, heavy imagery! Subjects are weird and never seen; "hardcore cleaning" (da house) and "Killer Penguin" (the movie). Don't miss James, flash movie and icons!



Robot Frog Retro! Robot Frog, greatest minimal design ever, presents old-fashioned aliens, cars and gaming. I've got this fetisj for the "nebulorn guard" - cool looking guy and also stretched to fit your desktop! You can also play RetroBlaster there, quite an addictive game actually (specially since I suck at gaming and thus don't get that far); it's flash, so dig it out of your temporary internet files, if you like.

Scrow Ok, we owe Scrow. He made what is now the only complete ànd free icon proggie, IconPhile, it rules. But lets not forget his icons, targeted on gaming and system sets, they're good. And have a look at his "glyphs" set too; good chance you've seen them used in some freeware program lately, they're known all around, and for good reason. And last, when was the last time you saw a good, beautiful, but also usable cursor-set presented ?

Sinas The waterguns & soakers are eye-catchers, and you should definitely visit the Watergun museum, but there's more at Sinas Icons... like balls.. remember the first cool icons you found in pifmgr.dll (?), with the cool beach ball inside (heh). Find some more, rejoyce, since these are really good.


Le Voyage Here's more classic, artistic icons (loads of them) found in lots of collections (...) but made by Paul Harmon, or Mazerine, at "Le Voyage". It's all little paintings really, sketches or scribbles if you will, in bright and cheerful colors.



Yupidle Well, the little guy at Yupidle is real cute, and there's more than a few very well done icons of him, and other funny characters. They're not complicated, but very expressive, at least... ok, it's fun seeing him dressed up as a ghost, or anything. And no, I'm not embarrased.



Lyle Zapato Lyle Zapato originates on the Amiga, but has all kinda icons up, concerning archeology, animals, insects.. all great!! If your looking for some civilized, crafty and beautiful icons, you should have a look.



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