Free Adobe Illustrator Symbol Set: National Park Service Pictographs

Adobe Illustrator symbol libraries
in three styles

Many of the icons that the US National Park Service uses on their official park maps are available in various formats from the Harpers Ferry Center website. These include PDF files, True Type fonts, and ESRI style sheets for ArcGIS. However, none of these resources provide that “always at hand” simplicity that can be gained by organizing their symbol sets into an Adobe Illustrator Symbol Library. Further, no single resource from NPS has all of the available symbols in a single location. So I’ve taken all of the hassle out of the organization process and created three separate Illustrator libraries, one for each pictograph style. There are 468 symbols in total across the three sets, and they will always be only a few clicks away during your next mapping project, right there in the Illustrator menus. No longer will you have to track down an external resource PDF & copy and paste each element into your document. Click below to view the entire set:

Optimized for List View

With 156 symbols in each style’s set, it can be challenging to quickly find the one you’re looking for. I’ve organized each set into eight categories, and used an easily identifiable number-symbol at the start of each category. Further, each of the category headers use long dot leaders to help break the symbols into groups when viewed in either the Large or Small List Views. These categories are:

  1. Accomodations

  2. Services

  3. Land Activities

  4. Water Activities

  5. Winter Activities

  6. Accessibility

  7. Points of Interest

  8. Emergency

Download the symbol sets

NPS Pictographs
 

  • 156 Pictographs

  • No Background

  • CMYK & 100% Black (no rich-black)

NPS Pictographs Open Fill

  • 156 Pictographs

  • White Background

  • CMYK & 100% Black (no rich-black)

pictograph-solid.gif

NPS Pictographs Solid Fill

  • 156 Pictographs

  • Solid Color Background

  • CMYK & 100% Black (no rich-black)

Instructions for use:

To use these symbol libraries in Illustrator, unzip them and place the .ai file into the Symbols folder for Adobe Illustrator. There are a couple of default locations that you can place them, depending on your Illustrator version or your specific workflow. You might try the following locations

  • PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator\Presets\Symbols
  • Mac: ~/Library/ApplicationSupport/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CC-Whatever/en_US/symbols

Restart Illustrator and open the libraries by going to the Window Menu > Symbol Libraries > NPS Pictographs. Or, depending on where you installed them and what version you’re using, they might be in Symbol Libraries > User Defined > NPS Pictographs. I honestly wish Adobe had an easier one-stop location for all things custom library, but it is what it is… Enjoy!