When it comes to being a designer, you’ll always need to stock up on graphics, stock photography and fonts as well as rely on other helpful tools to successfully get your work done. The list might seem daunting and endless, but it doesn’t have to cost you the earth. From choosing the perfect typography and finding the right visual assets to selecting the best colour palette, there is a wealth of free resources out there to make your work shine. Our designers and our creative team has helped to put together this fresh list of 50 essential resources for graphic designers – and they won’t cost you a penny. Free Graphic Resources
How would we survive without having access to those crucial visual assets that help to add polish to our designs? The following resources bring you everything from web icons and templates to vectors and textures – and even better, they’re free. So you can save money while meeting that deadline.
1. Pixeden
Looking for lots of free graphics and web resources all in one place? Pixeden has a little bit of everything. With plenty of graphic design and web design templates, icons and vectors – you’ll be spoilt for choice. You can join for freebut if you want a little extra, you can upgrade to one of their premium plans too. www.pixeden.com
2. Design Instruct
Design Instruct offers lots of free resources including icons, vectors, fonts, stock images and textures – everything you might need for your projects. Simply head to their Freebies section where you can take your pick and download for free. www.designinstruct.com
3. Creative Market
On Creative Market, check out their Get Free Goods section for a line-up of the best free goodies from the past week. To mix things up the website offers a variety of graphics, including vectors, Photoshop packs, fonts and textures. www.creativemarket.com
4. Pixel Buddha
Pixel Buddha offers an endless catalogue of freebies, including icons, templatesand vectors, along with some high quality fonts. From time to time the website also hosts limited special offers, giving you access to premium goods for nothing. www.pixelbuddha.net
5. Dribbble
You know Dribbble for being a great source of design inspiration, but did you know it also offers loads of high quality freebies? We’re talking icons, fonts, vector illustrations, patterns and textures. Get yourself an account to start taking advantage of Dribbble’s treasure trove of free goodies. www.dribbble.com
6. Endless Icons
Doing exactly what it says on the tin, Endless Icons brings you a wealth of freeicons to suit your design projects. From the usual suspects of web, corporate and social to more unusual themes such as beauty, food and fun icons – this is the place to find what you need. www.endlessicons.com
7. Noun Project
Millions use Noun Project to access new icons added daily by its creative community. A free membership is available, giving you access to over 100,000 icons of various themes. There’s also an option to upgrade and get unlimited access to the directory. www.thenounproject.com
8. GraphicsFuel
Rafi is the graphic designer behind GraphicsFuel – an online resource where he provides high quality Photoshop freebies with the original source files in .PSD format. He spends a lot of his time creating quality graphics just to give them away for free – so make sure you check out his design collections. www.graphicsfuel.com
9. FreePik
Need some free vector designs? FreePik is the place for you. Claiming to be the leading search engine for such graphics, there are over a million free vectors and photographs at your fingertips. www.freepik.com
10. FlatIcon
Over 130,000 vector icons grouped together in 1,849 packs – that’s the promise from FlatIcon that brings you a ton of free icons to download and keep. www.flaticon.com Free Typography Resources Need some decent typefaces for your print or digital projects? Typography can get expensive rather quickly. So if money’s tight, check out the following leading resources that offer plenty of gorgeous fonts for free.
11. Font Squirrel
Font Squirrel is the king of all font websites, bringing you hundreds of freetypefaces that you can use across all your commercial work. Whatever style you’re after, from a more corporate font to softer calligraphic lettering, there is something to suit. www.fontsquirrel.com
12. Fontshop
Whether you’re a seasoned designer or just getting started, Fontshop gives a nice digest of design terms relating to fonts in their glossary. It’s also a good place to start if you’re unsure about how to search for the font you want. Here’s the full A-Z of terminology so you can get clued up: www.fontshop.com
13. Typewolf
Created with the purpose of gathering together the best typography resources, Typewolf makes finding the perfect font super easy. There are tons of lists summing up certain types of fonts, guides and resources about typography, and other recommendations. The website even has a catalogue of where different fonts are used, so you can get a feel of what they look like in print or online. www.typewolf.com
14. Typecast
A free account on Typecast gives you access to over 3,650 web fonts, including some of the most celebrated and influential typefaces. It also lets you design a working prototype that can be exported ready for production in HTML and CSS. Nice. www.typecast.com
15. Free Typography
There are a lot of fonts to choose from on Free Typography, whether you’re searching for something simple or a more unique typeface. The website also invites you to submit your own font, which is a good way to build up your portfolio. www.freetypography.com
16. Open Foundry
Open Foundry is a new platform for open-source fonts in a noise-freeenvironment; to highlight their beauty and encourage further exploration. Founded by Stefan Endress and Alastair O’Shea – the site offers hundreds of freeopen-source fonts optimised for the web. www.open-foundry.com
17. Handwriting Fonts
Need typography that’s a little more handwritten? These 10 Handwriting Fonts give the impression of being created with pens and pencils, giving a more casual style for less formal website designs. Brought to you free of charge by ByPeople. www.bypeople.com Free Stock Photography A photograph can often complete a design. But because so many stock imagery sites cost a small fortune to purchase from, how can you find copyright-freepictures for free? The following solutions will become essential bookmarks.
18. Death to the Stock Photo
Founded by two rogue photographers Allie and David, Death to the Stock Photo was launched in 2014 to help creatives struggling to find images that fit their “vibe and tribe”. There are plenty of free photos to choose from, but there’s also an option to upgrade and go premium. www. deathtothestockphoto.com
19. Pexels
Described as the website with the ‘best free stock photos in one place’, Pexels adds five new high quality photos daily – copyright-free and available for commercial use. www.pexels.com
20. Little Visuals
Little Visuals is a simple, free resource where you can sign up to get seven high-res images zipped to your inbox every Thursday. Think quality city scenes and rolling landscapes, and you’re able to use the images any way you want. www.littlevisuals.co
21. Life of Pix
Life of Pix offers high-resolution photos with no copyright restrictions. Added weekly, all images are donated to the public domain, courtesy of Leeroy, an advertising agency in Montreal and its trusted network of photographers. www.lifeofpix.com
22. Stocksnap
Calling itself the number one source for beautiful free stock photos, Stocksnap offers hundreds of high-resolution images, added weekly – and not one would be considered cheesy. www.stocksnap.io
23. Unsplash
Another great little website, Unsplash adds 10 new photos every 10 days. From portraits and landscapes to architectural imagery, this will become an essential bookmarked site. www.unsplash.com
24. PicJumbo
Created by Viktor, a web designer who “understands the requirement for decent stock photography”, PicJumbo offers high quality photos for free. An attribution is appreciated but not necessary. www.picjumbo.com
25. Gratisography
Gratisography provides free high-resolution pictures you can use for both your personal and commercial projects. All images have been taken by Ryan McGuireand are free of copyright restrictions. www.gratisography.com