I’m sharing some of my high quality textures and patterns for all to download and design with. Periodically I’ll be posting some freebies for all to share, so always check back. This week is a variety of colored picnic patterns. All are in Adobe Illustrator CS3 format.
Download Picnic Pattern – Black
Download Picnic Pattern – Light Blue
Download Picnic Pattern – Orange
I came across this wonderful letterpress idea. I already love letterpress items, so when I found a few guys (Samuel Cox & Justin LaRosa) who created letterpress posters with pieces of Lego blocks I knew I had to share.
By using Lego pieces they arranged them to create images and words on paper. I favorite certainly is the “pixelroni pizza.” This is a wonderfully creative way to use found objects as means of creating art. Check out some of their wonderful work on here or purchase one of their prints from their website.
Not all stock photography sites are created equal, at least not in my opinion. Many stock photography sites can have thousands upon thousands of images for sale. It is best to know what type of artwork they have, because it could be the cheapest site per image but actually be terrible images with bad angles or lighting. Quality of images on a site doesn’t always equal great quality of images.
I have found this to be true with Stock Exchange, it is a free stock website but doesn’t nearly have the same quality of images that iStockPhotography (my favorite stock photo site, despite the high price rates.) does. Unfortunately it isn’t always a great site to use for professional commercial work, but could be a great resource for student work, who are on a budget and rather have high quality images for free. That leads me to my next website, Flickr has been brought to my attention because people who are just trying to share their images with others and friends may unknowingly upload full size images that people may “steal” and use for their own projects. There is the rare occasion where an account would upload images, patterns or textures for free download and non-copyrighted use. It just takes a bit more searching the different accounts to get the right one with free images. If you need a free image, it may be worth the time to search on Flickr
Now onto some true stock photography sites; I’ll start with the not so good. I’ve found that Dreamstime is a so-so website for good images, it seems to have too many amateur photos. As a quick search of “cat” brought it an image of a cat on the floor with household electrical wires in the background and a dresser that seems much less appealing than a white background photo would be. There’s formal photography and what seems to be people photographing with their small digital cameras with built in flash and submitting them. It is unfortunate that Dreamstime seems to have low standards for the image they care to sell. I feel that makes it harder for us as designers to easily search and find the good quality of image types we are looking for.
My recommendation for great stock photography websites are 1st rated iStockPhotography and then Shutterstock. iStockPhotography is a great resource for many reasons, they offer a free photo each week and a free vector image each month. For those on a budget they also offer the dollar bin. For only a few credits (perhaps you have some left over or not enough to buy a large image) use them up here. Where it often features textures, objects and great macro (close up) photography. I have always been able to find something useful in the dollar bin, and at less of a cost. I’ve found the range of images available on this site is very professional and well lit. This may be because of iStockPhotography’s high rejection rate of images, since they may only want the best for their website and clients. Because of these standards I feel iStockPhotography gives the best selection of images. Since I have joined their website, their rate have gone up but as far as I’m concerned it is still worth it because they have an amazing selection, from the vague to the specific mostly all can be found through iStockPhotography.
Coming in at a close 2nd place is Getty Images. Since beginning college, Getty Images has been the main stock website I used to gather my royalty free images, I have unfortunately used it less since other websites have popped up. But that was a great staple of my early graphic design education. They can also be a bit expensive for the type of image size you need to purchase, but just like iStockPhotography rates have increased.
One last site that I recommend is Shuttestock, I have browsed this site many times for client work and found them to be very similar in quality and amount of available photos as iStockPhotography. Their on demand image subscription can make the images as low as $10. So for a quick photo at minimal cost check out Shutterstock
As with a majority of stock websites now they don’t just offer photos, they also offer video clips, flash intros and audio clips. These can be great quick additions to a project or website without having to have the knowledge of creating it.
Hopefully if you haven’t heard of some of these stock websites, I have helped you discover them. If you have one of your own favorite stock photography websites you can share it in the comments section.