If the whole pack or a specific icon has been rejected, it will be due to at least one of the following reasons:
Aesthetic Aspects
1. Quality standards not reached
6. Wrongly used Language / Grammar or spelling errors
8. Composition
10. Perspective
Technical Aspects
12. Invalid file
13. Stroke not outlined (expand stroke)
14. Excess of nodes
15. Unwanted elements in the artboard
16. Deformed strokes
17. Layers
18. Adjust icon size to artboard
General Aspects
20. The icon doesn't represent the concept or theme
23. Outdated
24. Duplicate
25. Plagiarism
26. Ethical policies
1. Quality standards not reached
Files that do not meet the aesthetic or technical standards established by the company will be rejected
If your content is rejected for this reason, it means that it has not the required technical or aesthetic quality.
2. Limited commercial value
We determine the commercial appeal of the pack/icon taking into account the downloads and profitability data collected throughout time. Therefore, your content will be rejected if we consider it will not reach the minimum number of downloads to be profitable.
3. Lack of homogeneity
Icons must be homogeneous. We can reject your icons if the design is not consistent according to:
- Stroke: all icons must have the same thickness.
- Discontinuous stroke: if you decide to create a discontinuous outline, make sure you apply this effect to all the icons within a pack consistently.
- Typography: if you include letters or numbers, they must have the same thickness as the rest of the icon.
- Vertices: be consistent with the icon’s vertices. Exceptionally, you can mix straight and rounded vertices in the same icon, but in that case, make sure all icons within the pack follow this pattern.
- Color: apply the same color palette to the whole pack so it makes sense as a whole.
4. Lack of coherence
The style of the icons does not follow the style assigned to the pack.
All icons belonging to the same pack must represent the same style.
Different styles should not be mixed in the same pack.
5. Wrongly used typography
The font is not consistent with the resource. Your files may be rejected due to the following issues:
- Functionality: the font you used is not visually appealing nor harmonious with the design. Please, bear in mind that fonts must be legible and consistent with the pack’s style and functionality.
- Unnecessary or redundant: If the icon does not need any typographic resources to have a meaning on its own it will be rejected.
6. Wrongly used Language/Grammar or spelling errors
The language used is not allowed. Please note that we only accept text properly written in English, except for relevant specific festivities, where a brief text in the local language is accepted. Make sure the text has no mistakes, it is related to the resource and it is correctly integrated into the icon. Also, make sure it does not conflict with our ethical policies.
If your designs contain spelling or grammar errors, they will also be rejected.
7. Color Palette
The color palette used in the composition does not match with the pack’s theme. Your content can also be rejected because the colors applied are obsolete or not harmonious.
Packs can be rejected when the chromatic harmony is disrupted by too many colors.
8. Composition
The icon does not comply with the basic composition rules. In order for a icon to have good composition, all parts must be put together coherently. Make sure they are correctly arranged in the artboard and have adequate size. Also, the icon must have symmetry in its composition.
9. Complex concepts
The icon must comply with universal basis of understanding and simplified concepts. Icons should not depict very complex concepts, they must be icons, not illustrations.
If you design complex images such as illustrations you can take your chance at contributor.freepik.com.
10. Perspective
Icons must have a frontal or side representation to provide a flat view, the only exception allowed would be when the concept can not be understood in any other way. Just in certain cases, it will be allowed to show an isometric view, but never any other unnecessary perspective.
11. Gradient wrongly applied
We do not accept icons where gradients have been applied to each element individually. Make sure the gradient is uniform and homogeneous and makes sense as a whole.
12. Invalid file
We will reject your icons if, once uploaded to the panel, the file presents loading errors. Only files in .svg format are accepted.
13. Stroke not outlined (expand stroke)
All the strokes must be outlined.
Expand strokes, including the text that there might be.
Please note: DO NOT expand gradients.
14. Excess of nodes
The icon must be created with just the right amount of node.
15. Unwanted elements in the artboard
There are unwanted elements in the artboard that are not part of the illustration such as reference images, nodes, separate parts of the illustration, editable text, other icons, etc.
Please note: There is no need to add any rectangular white form as an “artboard” behind the icon.
16. Deformed strokes
The excess of nodes can lead to a deformation of the strokes. This can be avoided by reducing the number of nodes to a minimum. Here’s a short explanation of how to do it:
- Save the file as a .svg
- Save
- You will see the “SVG Options” window
- Click on “More Options” and insert “3” in the decimals field
- Then, press OK.
>17. Layers
Layers should appear correctly named. Only characters from A-Z and 0-9 are valid. To avoid layers with the same names, they should be numbered.
18. Adjust icon size to artboard
If the icon’s size is smaller than the artboard, we will reject your content. The artboard must have a size of 512 x 512 pt, so make sure the icon adjusts to it.
19. Repetition of elements
If the icons you send have minimal differences from other icons sent in the same submission, these will be rejected.
20. The icon does not represent the concept of theme
The design does not reflect the concept of the icon or has a different theme compared to the rest of the pack.
21. Trademark/Copyright
Icons containing registered trademarks are not allowed. Examples of trademarks:
- Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Android, Google, Polaroid, Microsoft, Mastercard, LEGO, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc.
- Social Media icons (we will only accept them as long as the icons are similar to the original trademarks or they are in fill, solid, or glyph style. Very artistic styles are not accepted.
- Trademarks of movies, characters, and games such as Pacman, Mario Bros, Pinball, Pokemon, Gameboy, Rubik's Cubes, Spinner.
22. Similar submissions
We will reject packs uploaded by the same author with a similar appearance. For example: if an author uploads two packs in outline style of the same theme, one of the two will be rejected for similar content, although they present some slight differences.
- It is possible to submit different style icons of the same theme, but these icons should be properly modified according to these styles, which have to be clearly different from one another.
23. Outdated
Icons that are out of date at the time they are received (for example, "Happy New Year 2018"). If your design refers to a holiday that has already passed, but it does not include any specific date, it will be accepted. However, we highly suggest you send packs/icons in advance (two months before the date is the ideal timing) so that users can download your resources and you can obtain a higher profit.
In the case of calendar icons, we recommend using a generic date, such as 1, 30, or 31, instead of using a random number.
24. Duplicate
This reason refers to duplicated or repeated icons, meaning that we will not accept resources that have been already sent, whether they were published or not.
Please note that repeatedly sending the same packs does not increase the chances of publication.
25. Plagiarism
All artwork you send must be original and of your own. Therefore, if you send us plagiarized resources, they will be rejected. Right after detecting that your content infringes copyright, your contributor account will be blocked permanently.
Reuse of elements: Including in your content elements from other authors, however minimal, is also considered plagiarism. We do not accept packs or icons containing elements already published by Freepik or by other contributors. We will also reject content that reuses CC0 resources.
26. Ethical policies
This rejection reason refers to icons that contain or encourage inappropriate behavior. For example, violent, sexual, or pornographic content will be rejected. We do not accept icons that may, in some way, offend or affect the user’s sensibility.