LiveJournal Icon Archive

A 3 by 7 grid of blue and teal icons featuring anime and game characters.

About

LJ icons (also known as userpics) are 100 x 100px graphics used for profile pics, journal entries, comments, and community posts on LiveJournal. By default, free users could have up to 15 saved userpics at a time, allowing huge flexibility to convey mood, tone, interests/fandoms, memes, etc. The vast majority of these are 50 kb or less in size to comply with early 2000s file restrictions. For reference, the collection of 7,500+ icons I have sorted is just under 160MB total. Wild.

Example of a userpic set circa 2012

A livejournal screenshot of several different userpics for one user, each with different keywords, with one specified as default.

This is a HUGE archive of livejournal icons I saved/collected between 2006 to 2011. It's definitely an internet time capsule of sorts. (I used to collage these into pages to decorate my 3-ring binders for school.) These were my first introductions to graphics editing, super early internet jokes, and things that would evolve into aesthetic moodboards that would later appear on tumblr.

LJ Icon Trends:

  • Aesthetic: Text, filters, artsy, LOTS of texture overlays
  • Fan-colored manga panels
  • Matching expression sets (great for RP'ers)
  • Shitposts / memes / fun frames or panels
  • Gifs with plot (?)
  • Text only / memorable quotes / fandom sayings

Info / Use / Credits exlaimation bubble

  • These collections are listed by series and will include spoilers.
  • These icon edits are not mine. Most images include the LJ user or comm credit in the filename.
    • Some of these credits have unfortunate usernames - sorry. :(
    • These graphics are 10+ years old. Is it a moot point to try to credit old accounts from an old social site that may or may not be purged by now? Honestly, I have no idea.
    • If you save/use these, no need to credit me. You can mention this LJ icon archive if you really, really want to.
    • Are any of these your edits? If so - AMAZING. I can take them down if you don’t want these relics haunting you.
  • A large portion of these include uncredited fanart. A bummer!

Archives by Series (WIP)

Misc Archives (WIP)

  • Fandom text
  • J-fashion & EGL
  • Megamasso
  • Misc aesthetic, cartoons

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