50 Free Icons For Empty States
Last Updated on August 20, 2026 by Editorial Team
A free set of icons, containing 50 amazing icons waiting to be used for empty states. Crafted by Olga Barkova for Cadabra Studio.
What makes this icon set stand out is the personality baked into every single mark. A piggy bank with a sleepy little snout, a stormtrooper helmet rendered in soft rounded lines, a cactus with an “x-x” face like it just got knocked out, a Pac-Man style ghost with wobbly eyes, a voodoo doll stitched together with pins, a rocket blasting off at an angle. These are not generic dashboard glyphs. They read more like characters, and that character is exactly what makes them so useful for empty states.
Every icon shares the same outlined, single-weight line style with consistently rounded corners and a friendly, slightly bouncy geometry. Nothing is filled in solid; the linework does all the storytelling, which keeps the icons light and easy to drop onto any colored background without visual clutter.
The preview shows them sitting on bold, saturated color blocks: burnt orange, deep navy, red, blue, plum, and teal. That is a strong hint at how versatile these icons are with color. Because the strokes are white and the shapes are simple, each icon adapts instantly to whatever brand color or dark mode palette you drop behind it.
Where These Icons Work Best
Empty states are the whole point here, and that shows in the subject matter.
A dashboard with no saved payment method could use the piggy bank. A search that returns nothing could use the ghost or the cactus, both of which visually suggest absence or emptiness in a playful way.
An error page or a “something broke” screen pairs naturally with the voodoo doll or the stormtrooper, since both carry a slightly mischievous, tongue-in-cheek tone. A “get started” or onboarding screen fits the rocket, which already reads as launch and momentum.
Beyond literal empty states, this set works well anywhere a product needs a moment of personality: 404 pages, onboarding flows, no-notifications screens, no-results states in an app, or even loading screens paired with a short message.
They suit SaaS products, mobile apps, and web platforms that want to soften a potentially frustrating moment (nothing here, nothing found, nothing yet) with a bit of humor instead of a blank void or a dry system message.
Because the icons lean playful and characterful rather than strictly corporate, they fit brands with a casual, friendly, or startup-y voice better than they fit formal enterprise software. If your product has a sense of humor, these icons will feel right at home.
Customizing the Icons for Your Interface
Since the whole set relies on outlined strokes, the easiest edit is simply recoloring the stroke to match your UI.
Open the icon in your editor of choice, select the line paths, and swap the stroke color to your accent color or to a neutral gray if you want it to sit quietly in a light-mode interface.
Stroke weight is worth checking too. If you are scaling an icon down for a compact empty state or a small illustration slot, you may want to slightly thicken the stroke so it does not disappear at small sizes.
Scaling up for a hero-style empty state illustration usually works cleanly since the shapes are simple, but it is worth zooming in to check that corners and joins still look crisp at the larger size.
If you want the icon to feel more embedded in your product, try placing it inside a soft rounded container or a subtle colored circle, similar to the blocks in the preview, rather than floating it on plain white.
That single background treatment does a lot to make a generic icon feel like a designed moment rather than an afterthought.
When pairing these with the rest of your UI, keep supporting text short and a little playful to match the tone of the icon; a deadpan “No results found” under a knocked-out cactus reads a lot better than a long, formal explanation. Pair the icon with a single clear call to action, like a button to reset a search or add a payment method, so the empty state still moves the user forward instead of just decorating a dead end.
