22 April, 2009

19 Free hand-drawn sketch icons

by Charlie | 93 Comments

I‘ve been seeing a lot of sketch-type web designs around recently, as well more and more hand-drawn fonts. I don’t think that’s a big surprise.

Web 2.0 style, which is/was great in its own right, gave us a lot of slick glossiness that was almost too perfect. It’s only natural that a new style would emerge, one that would act as a counterpoint to all that.

That’s where these sketch icons come in. They’re the perfect contrast for any Web 2.0 design you may have, and they’ll fit right in with anything you’re working on that needs a more organic feel.

About the hand-drawn icons

These were all drawn by me. On paper. With a pen. Then I scanned them in and cleaned them up (but not too much) in Illustrator.

Each icon is a jpeg and comes in two sizes: 48×48 and 96×96 pixels. Each is dark greyish on a white background. You want more info than that, you’ll just have to download them!

I hope you enjoy these and are able to add some human touch to your design projects. And when you do use them, feel free to send me a link and I’ll feature your work (if it’s awesome).

Update: ALL of the icons are now in transparent PNG format. Yup, that means they’ll work on top of any background. Except black of course. That would be silly.

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93 Brilliant Responses

Anthony
23 April 2009 @ 8am

Dig ‘em, dude, thanks! I have just the place for these. I might commission a couple others that aren’t in the set that I’d like to use in an ebook I’m doing.

Rock on, and thanks again!

Anthony

Charlie
23 April 2009 @ 12pm

Thanks, Anthony! Appreciate it.

Send me a link when you put the icons to use. Would love to see what people do with these.

teddY
24 April 2009 @ 12pm

Wow, amazing set of icons! I love the way you’ve shaded in the shadows – lovely! Thanks for sharing!

I’m just wondering – will it be better if you convert it to transparent PNGs for those who’re less adept at Photoshop/Illustrator?

Charlie
24 April 2009 @ 1pm

teddY

Thanks, dude! I really appreciate your comment. And your suggestion is a good one. I’ll be issuing some PNGs and updating the post soon.

And let me know if you use the icons anywhere. Would love to see them in action.

MorayWeb
24 April 2009 @ 11pm

Really nice work! Like teddY I would be really happy with PNG versions too! Keep up the good stuff…

teddY
25 April 2009 @ 1am

Definitely. If I’ll be using your icons (they look perfect for a hand-drawn/grunge theme), I’ll keep you posted thanks for being so helpful – I guess many will be delighted with the transparent PNG icons.

Rishi Sinha
7 June 2009 @ 8pm

Amazingly balanced!

Charlie Reply:
June 7th, 2009 at 8:45 pm

Thanks, Rishi! I appreciate that!

Anna
23 June 2009 @ 8pm

I love them! Very original. My favorite is the Reddit icon

jakob
24 July 2009 @ 7am

Hi,

i just used one of your wonderful icons on a friend’s website:
http://weder-communications.de.

cheers
Jakob

Charlie
24 July 2009 @ 7am

Jakob -

Fantastic, man! I appreciate your using the icon and for sharing the link as well. That site is looking excellent! Nice work, and thanks again!

Wouter
5 October 2009 @ 12pm

Nice ones! I will be probably using these on my new website, send me an email to remind me to contact you when it’s done cheers

Gopal Raju
9 October 2009 @ 10pm

Thanks Will definitely use them!

Simon Philp
11 January 2010 @ 2am

Liking the icons alot. Any news on “issuing some PNGs and updating the post soon.” Transparent set would be nice

Charlie
11 January 2010 @ 10am

@Wouter
@Gopal Raju

Thanks guys, I am glad you like them! Looking forward to seeing how you use them!

@Simon Philp
Dude. Thanks for the reminder…UPDATED! Enjoy!

Vince
13 January 2010 @ 7am

“That would be silly”. Haha, I laughed

Frank Schrijvers
19 January 2010 @ 8am

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for the great icon set. I’ve used your icon set on themebuilder.nl.

Gracias!

Frank

Charlie
22 January 2010 @ 10am

Frank

Hey, man, nice work! Those look fantastic on your site. You did a great job with the placement and overall feel.

Thanks for letting us know!

Ermil
16 February 2010 @ 5am

Thanks for the icon share. Very skilled icons set without a doubt

Alex
23 March 2010 @ 5am

Hey, fantastic collection of hand drawn Icons. Thanks for this collection

Charlie Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 9:41 am

Thanks, Alex. You’re very welcome. Let us know if you do something cool with them. Love to see them in action.

hollywood-acting-workshop
5 April 2010 @ 7am

this is the first time i have seen hand drawn icons. nice.

aki
7 June 2010 @ 12am

Thankg you my man for this!

Cat
12 July 2010 @ 7pm

Great icons! I was wondering if you will do one for facebook?

Mickaël Floc'hlay
24 August 2010 @ 9am

Great icons !
I’ve used one of them on my website and mentioned this page on it too : http://www.deadroostersoft.org.dev:8888/spip/Adapter-un-site-SPIP-a-un-terminal

Mickaël Floc'hlay
24 August 2010 @ 9am

I’ve messed with the previous URL. The right one is : http://www.mickaelflochlay.com/spip/Adapter-un-site-SPIP-a-un-terminal

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