30 FREE graphic design resources every designer should know about
Graphic Designers are creative visionaries, but if you’re someone just starting out with your journey as a future successfully thriving graphic designer in this competitive industry, then developing everything from scratch can turn mind-numbing and time-consuming very soon.
Even as a tried designer with substantial years of experience under your belt, you would still appreciate things that make your designing process quicker and easier from time-to-time. Or who knows, you might even find creative inspiration in the most unexpected places!
Finding high-quality stock images, illustrations, icons, and more can be troublesome when you don’t know where to start looking, and hence we have compiled this list of dependable resources to make your search journeys less sluggish and more rewarding. Let’s jump right into it!
free stock photos
Our personal favourite, our go-to place for all the high-quality assets we need. Despite having a paid plan, Freepik is an amazing place for finding innumerable free options with uncompromised quality when it comes to stock photos.
With a library of over 1M+ royalty free images and photos, you have the freedom to download any image you like and use it for your next project.
Pexels is also another great place where you can browse through millions of free stock images and take your desired pick from the pool.
A place where you can find simply exquisite photographed material. This is a gallery of 2.2M+ free images where every photo is registered under the Pixabay Licence that makes every content piece free to use for all commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Powered by Shopify, Burst is home to thousands of high-resolution images that one can download and use for free
free stock videos
Along with providing ample free stock images for use, Pexels also accommodates superior stock video footage that can be used for free.
The resource giant has now put across a sizable collection of free stock videos available to use across a few themes.
This New York based marketplace allows you to not only choose from a considerable offering of free stock video material but it’s also complemented by a free audio section you can explore!
With 25 categories to choose from, you can totally find some fascinating and very useful material from here that has been beautifully shot.
Life of Vids is yet again another that offers a huge collection of free videos, clips, and loops to take one’s pick from. What’s more? New videos are added on the platform every week!
free illustrations
Apart from hosting plenty of free stock images, Freepik is also a place where you can find exceptional vector illustrations for free in various formats. A site worth keeping bookmarked in your browser at all times.
Having difficulty finding lined-based or sketchy illustrations? Well, your search for them shall end at Open Doodles. These illustrations are free to use for personal as well as commercial use.
With 16 curated sets, 97 illustrative styles, and 25 selectable categories, this site is a true paradise to find spectacular vector and 3D illustrations that suit your project requirements.
A collection of illustrations showcasing humans in various scenarios, these are available for download in the SVG and PNG formats. The easy navigation and editing adaptability is an added bonus.
Lukasz Adam continues to help budding designers in the best way possible – by giving you an extensive collection of self-created illustrations, illustration sets, and icons that you can use to add something more to your designs!
design inspiration
Known commonly as a website used by diverse creative folks to accumulate and present their portfolio of work to the world, Behance is a great place to find some amazing inspiration from the stunning work of other designers.
Another great platform to showcase your creative portfolio to the world, Dribbble also doubles as a networking and job recruiting site. Finding inspiration here is as easy as a search!
Better recognised as a wonderful platform to help boost SEO efforts like backlinking and content marketing, one simply cannot deny that the creative work shared on Pinterest is top-notch in quality and highly inspiring.
This is a collective network of writers who share articles about various creative topics like design, tutorials, photography, UI/UX, and more. The articles are a compilation of short text and ample visuals – much like a case study – and hence makes this a portal from where substantial creative inspiration can be obtained.
This is a UK based magazine that centres around the creative world and has various avenues to explore viz. Inspiration, resources, tips, podcast, etc. You can also pick from 18 design related topics to traverse.
design inspiration
Noun Project offers the most versatile collection of line and fill-based icons to pick from that are free to download and use. Before making your choice, you can also try out the icon in frames of different shapes to see what it would look like when used in your project!
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