For a lot of my web work, I depend on the best icon makers who publish their work under GPL. But sometimes it is necessary to make your own icons in a picture editing software.

Though we call them icons, these could be any type of image files. Image files with extensions like .jpg (JPEG images), .bmp (Bitmap images), GIF pictures (even animated GIF images) and .ico (Icon files) could all be used as icons when building your website.

Here are some of the best icons that you could use on your websites.

Feed Icons – Standard RSS & Feed icons released by Mozilla under GPL. There is a developers’ pack as well that you can download and tweek. Mozilla also provides various standard usage & creation guidelines for the syndication feed icons.

Firefox Icon Pack – This is an excellent source for various icons used by Mozilla. You can also create you won icons & submit them to Mozilla so that other developers can use them as well.

Everaldo Crystal Project – These icon packs are created across platforms (Apple Mac, Windows & Linux etc). The Crystal Project is more than just icons. There is a whole development pack available for those who want to explore further. The icons are released under GPL. Read the License terms if you want to design, modify & redistribute your contribution to the Crystal Project.

Microsoft Icons and How to Create Windows Compatible Icons – This is an excellent guide on how to create icons from scratch. This tutorial from Microsoft Developer Network explains in great details the key aspects of icons. It also explains how to create Windows compatible AVI movie files.

The second tutorial is a step by step guide on how to create all forms of icons with any digital imaging software like Adobe Photoshop.

Apple Mac Icons & Screen Savers – These icons (& screen savers) are specifically for Apple Mac platform. The more popular are the colorful iconXprit but you have to pay for them (like anything else with Apple).

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