Resource Ready
Designers all around the world are feeling the financial stresses of just trying to make ends meet (HAVE YOU SEEN THE PRICE OF BUTTER?!) struggling to keep up with the latest software and dealing with the constant fear of AI robots coming to TAKE OUR JOBS MAN! It's a tough time out there, but don't worry, we've got your back! We've compiled the ultimate list of free resources to help you keep creating and save some money along the way.
We’ll keep updating this list as we go to make the ultimate design resource!
Colour Resources
Let’s start with our bread and butter. We can all get stuck in the cycle of using the same or similar colour palettes in projects cause they are our favourite that week/month. These sites can really help you get out of your colour comfort zone.
This wonderful community of designers generously shares and creates their own inspiring palettes for everyone to benefit from. Find the latest colour schemes that are popular among the creative community and browse, save or keep them without any fees or hidden conditions.
Niché but nice. Color Lisa helps you find the hex colours of your favourite works of art. Big fan of Monet’s Water Lilies? Just search in this easy to navigate site to find all the hex colours used in that painting, and it’s completely free.
We had to include this as it’s such a great resource, and there is still loads of benefits you can get from the site without having to log in to an Adobe account. Drag and drop any image to get a hex breakdown of the colours in the image, explore colour trends in all areas of design, from UX to fashion. And explore via prompts such as the ocean or outer space. When you aren’t logged in you can’t save these down, but it doesn’t take long to copy and paste hex colours into your project from your finds on there.
A complimentary compilation of linear gradients that can serve as content backgrounds on any section of your website. Just copy the CSS3 cross-browser code and apply it instantly!
Font Resources
The free font’s road is well-worn from the days that you start out as a designer and can make or break a project. Paid for font licenses can bring even the most seasoned designer out in hives with how expensive they are. So here’s a run down of some of the best free font sites around.
The OG, in our eyes, in the journey of a graphic designer’s font searches. An utterly huge archive of fonts, searchable by style, name, popularity or author.
With over 1052 font families, Google Fonts is a fantastic resource for any designer. All the fonts available here for commercial purposes, whether it's for web or print projects, without any charges. Plus, you won't have to worry about manually updating the fonts because they're automatically updated for you.
An extensive list of fonts in an easy to use archive, they also have a Webfont Generator offers web designers the ability to convert any font into easy to use @font-face webfonts.
Created with a goal to enhance the design standards of the internet. You can use the complete collection of selected fonts for free. In addition, the site provides a newsletter, podcast, and courses to help you improve your typography skills.
Tool Resources
Not everyone can splash the cash on expensive design tools. But, if you're a budget-conscious designer, then this list of recommendations has some real gems that won't break the bank.
A great platform for people starting out in their graphic designer career. With over 250,000 free templates and over 100 media types, from presentations, social media templates to video and photo editing tools, there’s something for every project. Yes, not everything is free, but the huge amount that is, makes Canva a great place to go when you’re starting out your graphic design career.
Figma is a cloud-based design tool with a big focus on collaboration. Presentations, web design, logos and much more and all completely free. By learning to use Figma, you'll take your first steps into User Interface Design and and User Experience Design.
The time a graphic designer can spend trying to find that perfect font pairing can run up into double digits, but with Fontjoy, machine learning does the heavy lifting for you. The controls might take a bit of getting used to, but don't worry, once you get the hang of Fontjoy, you'll be able to lock in your favourite fonts and experiment with different pairings in no time!
Blender is a 3D creation suite that's completely free and open-source. It supports every aspect of the 3D pipeline, including modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, video editing, and game creation. In other words, it's got everything you need to bring your 3D ideas to life.. FOR FREE!
A comprehensive resource listing all international standards for paper sizes, dimensions and formats, this is a definite bookmark website that, if you’re anything like us, will check regularly.
A completely free vector graphics editor, with its own online users guide and tutorials. Whether you’re working on graphics for marketing, logos, icons, website UI designs, brochures or vector art, Vectr is simple and intuitive.
Previously known as Adobe Spark, Adobe Express is a condensed and free version of the full Creative Cloud suite. Whether you're an experienced designer or just starting out, this tool is great for graphic design. With a range of handy templates and quick actions that allow you to accomplish what you need with just a click of a button, it's a useful addition to your design toolkit.
There isn’t a day goes by that we don’t have to check the latest social dimensions to keep up-to-date with the ever changing social media sites. Another sure fire bookmark website that will keep you in the know.
Image Resources
Another designer time blackhole is the elusive hunt for the right images for your projects. Whether it’s lifestyle shots or city vistas, the right image can make or break how a design works. Make sure you do check the license agreements on any images that you use, as some can have hidden copyright clauses.
Addressing traditional stock photo sites images that lack in diversity, Nappy is a free stock image site with a selection of beautiful, high-res photos making it easy for companies to be purposeful about representation in their designs, presentations, and advertisements.
The Gender Spectrum Collection by Vice
A powerful collection featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés, aiming to represent these communities in a more accurate way. Instead of being defined solely by their gender identities, the models are depicted as people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives. Make sure you read the Creative Commons License on their usage guidelines page to keep watertight.
Pexels offers completely free, no-strings-attached photos and videos made and shared by creators around the world. It has the old school Flickr community vibes, with the added bonus of high quality, royalty-free images. High on the list of our go-to sites!
Another community-based stock site, originally everything on Unsplash was completely free, but they’ve recently added a premium paid for selection. But don’t worry, there’s still a comprehensive archive, with over three million curated images to search through.
Shopify built Burst to provide designers, developers and bloggers with access to beautiful free stock photography. The categories section makes it really easy to find what you’re looking for or just type in keywords for specific searches.
Illustration Resources
Let's face it, not all of us have the luxury of reaching out to our favourite illustrators for a quick image whether it’s because of time constraints or budget. So here’s a rundown of some great, free illustration sites that can be customised by yourself to suit the project.
Open Peeps is a hand-drawn illustration library to create scenes of people. Create custom scenes of people for free? With this site, you can easily generate images based on hand-drawn illustrations by customising different elements in the same illustration style until you've got the perfect image. Download as png or svg files, you can mix and match until you get your desired illustration.
The brains behind Open Peeps, Pablo Stanley, also created Open Doodles, another free and customisable illustration site that lets you copy, edit, remix, share, or redraw the images for any purpose without restriction under copyright.
Vecteezy makes it possible for users to download, edit, customise or create vector designs from scratch. Search by license type to find the best free illustrated assets that you can download and open in your editing software.
Brought to you by Illustrator Diana Valeanu, Absurd Design illustrations was a project started as a visual experiment, intended to bring a human touch to the digital projects. There’s a unique style and whimsy to Diana illustrations which will really make your projects have stand-out.
