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I just need some tips: where can I still find good complete pseudo-3D icon sets for Linux, especially Xfce?

Even when I search for "non-flat icons" on Google, half of the entries say "ultra-flat". Everybody seems in adoration of flatness. Everything is flat.

I have nothing against flat icons as long as I have a choice, but it seems I don't anymore. In fact flatness seemed so logical and obvious that I was glad to adopt it, but after a while I realized something was missing. I never liked excessive skeumorphism in a music player's GUI, but after a while I think it is preferable as far as icons are concerned. Why? Because an "icon" is a symbol, but not a letter; it should be the image of something; but a too-flat icon looks like the image of an image, like the quote of a quote. Or maybe it's just my mind that wants Firefox to have a fox-looking animal in its icon, not just a spot of orange, a folder icon to look like a folder and not just a rectangle.

I think flat icons serve their purpose only as long as we know the non-flat image that they refer to. I notice that my mind needs to know the first anyway in order to use the second, and that it asks for a fraction of a second more to recognize a flat icon for what it is.

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    I fully agree with you. Concerning UI it looks like we're back in the 1980s. Hell, even AmigaOS in 1985 featured 3D icons! – dr_ Oct 06 '17 at 13:27
  • Firefox icon is branding by Mozilla and does not really belong to any icon theme set. Not sure what icon theme is considered pseudo-3D... Can OP name any pseudo-3D icon theme set that OP were using previously? –  Nov 21 '17 at 16:35
  • @clearkimura - `Firefox icon is branding by Mozilla and does not really belong to any icon theme set`. The first is the one branded by Mozilla. The other two are part of icon sets that in my view should keep in mind the original. I was trying to illustrate a ***trend*** where icons go too far from what they need to represent. - I was looking for *recent* non-flat sets. –  Nov 22 '17 at 11:24
  • It's ancient at this point, but I'm still partial to Echo. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jul 19 '18 at 15:41
  • @clearkimura - sorry that I have missed a part of your comment: 3D icons were very common in the past. Example, the Oxigen set for KDE, which is old enough now, though usable. There was also the [Cristal](https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1002592/) set, that I was not able to find. Faenza is flatter, but still resisting the full-flatness, and is now continued as Delft. For that, see my answer, where I also mention an old super-3D set, FS Icons Ubuntu, which can still be downloaded. –  Jul 19 '18 at 15:52
  • @IgnacioVazquez-Abrams - where can you download it now? FS Icons Ubuntu is old too but can be found. –  Jul 19 '18 at 15:56
  • If your distro doesn't already have a package for it then you can build it [from source](https://pagure.io/echo-project), although I couldn't tell you how. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jul 19 '18 at 16:07

2 Answers2

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Here's some free desktop icons. They're for GNOME and not for Xfce, but hope it's a beginning.

dr_
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  • Thanks. But shouldn't these confirm the initial idea that there are no non-flat icon themes created in the last few years?.. –  Oct 07 '17 at 10:05
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There is of course Faenza and related sets that are not really recent.

One that is recent and based on Faenza is Delft. It looks very much like Faenza.

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There is also a rather recent Oxygen Remixed Icons

enter image description here Evolvere, Breeze, Flat Remix and Vivacious icons seem a good compromise between having a modern icon set and having clear and meaningful icons; without contradicting completely the flattening trend, they are clear, crisp, visible.

An older set - but one that is poignantly non-flat: FS Icons Ubuntu - which links to here. Also here.

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