Quality public domain icons for your map pins
pinhead.ink So you're making a map and need some icons. Well, maybe a lot of icons. Like, for anything that might appear on a map. And they need to be visually consistent. Like the size and direction and whatever. And they gotta be free. Even public domain. In vector format. With no AI. Oh, and they all need to be legible on the head of a pin.
This happened to me while building themap.is. I put together this icon library in case it happens to you too. It's called Pinhead.
Pinhead is an active, collaborative project. There are now over 2,300 total icons, including standardized versions of the most popular public domain cartographic icon sets: Maki, Temaki, OSM Carto, and NPMap.
Pinhead is a library of free vector icons. There are other projects like this, but Pinhead is special because it's:
- Cartography first
- 100% public domain
Map icons need to be really small to support high visual density, so all of Pinhead icons are intended to be legible at 15x15 pixels minimum. This is much smaller than most other icon sets you'll find, but you can scale them up and they'll still look great. And since they're licensed CC0, you can use them anywhere for free without restrictions.
Pinhead is distributed in a variety of formats suited to the likes of cartographers, designers, and developers. Browse the usage guide for detailed information about the different distributions and how to use them.
A small community is developing around Pinhead! We're working to make this the best and largest library of public domain map icons anywhere on the web, but we can't do it alone. Come join us in the #pinhead channel on OSM US Slack. Bring your questions, comments, and ideas, or feel free to open an issue on GitHub. You can also contact me (@quincylvania) directly through any of the channels listed on my website.
Pinhead is seeded from the following public domain sources, but does not mirror them exactly. Instead, the goal is to create a unified set of icons with standardized design elements and conventions. Check out the coverage page to see how Pinhead compares to these other icon sets. Thank you to all of the contributors to these projects.
Temaki (CC0) A special shoutout to Temaki for directly inspiring this repo and provding some of the build scripts <3
Maki (CC0)
NPMap Symbol Library (public domain)
OpenStreetMap Carto (CC0)
Osmic (CC0)
Health Icons (CC0)
OpenGemeenten Iconenset (CC0)
OpenHistoricalMap (CC0)
princesse and pirate map icons by @Viglino (CC0)
OpenStreetMap Americana (CC0)
OpenTrailMap (CC0)
- If you know of another icon source that might be a good fit for Pinhead, please let us know!
Pinhead also contains hundreds of custom icons that do not have parallels in other sets. Some of these are variants or derivatives of other icons, while others are totally original.
Contributions to Pinhead are open. See the contributors' guide for details, including the icon design guidelines, the code of conduct, and the AI/ML policy.
This repository is distributed under CC0.
