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Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, or digital artist, you have probably experienced the dread of signing up for yet another software subscription, forking out hundreds of dollars for a program that you will never officially own. Unfortunately, creatives know all-too-well the feeling of over-paying for services in a predominantly underpaid field.
Companies that have monopolized the creative software realm (*cough* Adobe) have found the money glitch in subscription-based software and have reached a 12 percent year-over-year growth since implementing the system. Adobe reported achieving a "revenue of $17.61 billion in fiscal year 2022" (news.adobe.com) as compared to its revenue of $1.023 billion in 2011, before it started its Software as a Service (SaaS) model (also known as the subscription-based system).
While this financial growth has been wonderful for Adobe (and other similar companies), the main detriment has been passed down to individual designers who will never officially own the software they rely on to do their jobs and– well– feed themselves.
This list of 50 FREE graphic design and media resources has been compiled in order to lower costs and some financial burden on independent creatives and small businesses in the media and design fields.
The main requirement for all of these websites to be put on this list were that they were useful resources that did not require any credit card or monetary information in order to use their service. Some services do have a paid and free option, but all of the free options are extensively useful. Nobody sponsored this Encylomedia entry in any way, so all opinions are our own and not biased based on incentive. Here is what we found!
Free Design and Media Resources
(If you know what you're looking for, click on a section to skip ahead)
Design Tools and Software
Figma had its first public release in 2016, and since then, it has grown to be a powerhouse in the UI space. Before discussing the usefulness of the tool, we most appreciate that Figma has a completely free version for those just dipping their toes into the new software. While there are many benefits to the paid versions, the free version is not restrictive and allows creators to create without worrying about paywalls.
Graphic designers have a love-hate relationship with Canva. Yes, it is a very useful took when you need to create a quick social media post, but the usefulness ends about there. Canva does not replace vector software, animation software, or photo editing software. It covers the basics, and that is why we love it.
Blender is a free and open source program that supports an immense amount of projects in the 3-D and 2-D realm. Blender supports animation&rigging, rendering, VFX, modeling, sculpting, and more. They have a very active user and support base that constantly posts tutorials online, especially since the Blender workspace may be very overwhelming for those just getting started. It would be nearly impossible to describe everything Blender offers in one paragraph, so just check out their website when you get the chance.
Inkscape is a completely free, open source software that is available for GNU/Linux, Windows, and macOS users. It has the benefit of being able to import and export Illustrator and Photoshop files if you find yourself in a transition phase, and they have a users' forum on their website that contains thousands of answers to questions you may have along the way.
Available for free in the app store, Vectornator is an extremely popular vector software for those who love designing on their tablet. A few users have quoted that the workspace is not as intuitive as they hoped (G2 Product Reviews), so there is quite a learning curve, but all-in-all, this is a great resource for mobile users.
Created by artists for artists, Krita is a raster editor available to download for Windows, Linux, and macOS users. Krita is meant to serve as a tool primarily for digital painting, animation, concept art, comics, illustration, sketching, and texturing. The open source cross-platform application has an immense amount of tutorials available on their website and on YouTube to help you get started.
With a design interface that is much more in-depth yet similar to Canva, Pixlr is an extremely versatile editing software that ranges from photo editing to graphic design. Pixlr allows designers to start with a blank slate or choose from one of their many templates in pre-sized canvases suitable for social media images such as YouTube thumbnails and Instagram carousels. Their AI generator allows you to create an image and seamlessly create a new design with it. There is no sign up required in order to start editing in your browser (no need to download the software). Pixlr is also able to open PSD documents; however, smart and warped objects did not always open correctly.
Image Editing Tools and Software
1. darktable
This one is for frequent users of Lightroom who are looking to switch to something more budget-friendly. Darktable is an extremely powerful program that runs on multiple operating systems including Linux, macOS, and Windows. One of the only issues with darktable is how long it takes to upload photos, but if you're fine with a little wait at the beginning of your editing process, then this one is for you.
2. Pixlr X
Having déjà vu? That's because we've already mentioned Pixlr in our design tools section. It not only works for graphic design but is also a very useful and very free program to edit your photos. You can also batch edit RAW files, which is a huge must for many photographers.
3. GIMP
Gimp is one of the most powerful photo editing softwares available even amongst paid programs. This open source platform comes with a community of editors and photographers who are constantly sharing tutorials and creating plug-ins to enhance the GIMP experience. One of the downsides? You cannot edit RAW photos natively in the program, so you will need to download a converter (many free ones exist) to change the RAW files into TIFF format.
And we're repeating another one, but it's because these are multi-faceted, popular programs within the creative field. Krita is not only incredible for painting, but has its fair share of useful photo editing tools. It can support RAW file formats from an immense amount of camera brands, so if you enjoy editing on design tablets, check it out.
Yes, Adobe has a free version of one of their apps, and photographers everywhere are quite grateful. The Lightroom mobile app is extremely powerful and easy to use with its minimalist design. If you do pay for an Adobe cloud subscription, then the Lightroom app will sync with all of your other programs.
Color Palettes
1. Coolors
Let's face it; coming up with color palettes can be taxing at times. Sometimes we just want to come up with one at the click of a button. With Coolors, you can do exactly that. With their color generator, you simple press your space bar, and a different color palette will generate each time you press the space bar. Want to keep a certain color and see which colors would pair well with it? You can lock a color in place while the other colors change. Coolors also lets you add your own colors with a HEX code. There is a paid tier that allows you to add more colors and export in more color formats. Overall, this is one of our go-to's when we need help coming up with palettes.
One of our other go-to's with color palettes is Adobe Color, which is another free Adobe tool. There is no download or email sign-up required to use the color wheel. Adobe allows you to create palettes based on specific guidelines, such as if you want an analogous or monochromatic palette. Once you set your base color, the other colors will automatically adjust to fit the standards of the type of palette chosen as you use the sliders. There is also the option to extract a color palette from a photo. There is also an extremely useful accessibility tool that allows you to check if two colors would contrast each other enough to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. If you have a cloud account, all color palettes you save will sync to your other programs, ready to use.
3. ColorSpace
Know the a color your want to use, but don't know where to go with it? ColorSpace allows you to enter a HEX code and then creates multiple palettes (from energetic to classic) for you to compare and contrast.
4. Muzli Colors
Muzli won us over because of how it demonstrates possible color palettes being used in UI design. Switch colors around, and the UI design updates to show a different hierarchy with the swatches. You can extract palettes from different images, and if you are unsure about a palette, there are options for related palettes at the bottom of the page to choose from.
While you are constrained to two colors on each palette, Pigment is a great resource for viewing the contrast between two colors within your project. Users cannot enter a specific color code, but they may organize palettes based on tone (using the color palette symbol to the left of the screen). Using the sliders within the "Lighting" and "Pigment" circles, you can change the warmth and vibrancy of palettes. Once you have chosen a palette, you can change the shades, and view the RGB, HEX, and Pantone codes of each color. There are also some very useful tools under "More Actions" including creating a gradient and curating a gallery of duotone stock photos using the two colors in the palette (through Unsplash).
Fonts
Google Fonts is one of the largest (if not the largest) catalogs of high-quality, open source fonts available to use for free. You can categorize fonts based on their characteristics (handwritten, sans serif, etc), and all fonts are available to download directly from the website. Google Fonts also has a wonderful resource called the "Type Tester" with which you can change the text color, background color, weight, size, etc. of the font you are considering alongside a heading, subheading, and paragraph to see if it works in the conditions you want.
Stating that it is the first open-source online font foundry, The League of Movable Type is a well-trusted foundry established in 2009. Their high-quality fonts have been used by nation-wide brands such as Barbie, Subway, and Whole Foods. You are allowed to modify and use their fonts in any commercial projects as long as you are not selling access to the fonts or the fonts themselves.
Lost Type is a collaborative digital font foundry that uses the "Pay-What-You-Want" business model for personal, educational, or non-profit projects. Commercial projects require payment, so keep this in mind if you are creating something for a client or to sell. Established in 2011, Lost Type's fonts have been used across the world and in projects for Starbucks, Nike, the President of the United States, and more. While you do not have to pay anything to use their fonts for personal use, if you choose to, 100% of proceeds go to the designers.
DaFont does not always have the highest quality fonts on their website, but they have some incredibly unique ones to help inspire your creative projects. They have a great amount of distinctive categories that you may not be used to seeing on other font catalogs. (These categories include "Modern Gothic", "Horror", "Music", and more). Not all of DaFont's fonts are free to use commercially, but there is a filter option to only show results for 100% free and public domain typefaces.
Fontjoy takes different typefaces and groups them together as a heading, subheading, and paragraph. By clicking the "Generate" button, a new group of fonts that work well together will emerge. If you want to keep a particular font but not the others, simply lock that font in place and click "Generate" again. Next to the "Lock" symbol is a button with a sliders icon. When you click on this, a page pops up showing a list of fonts that are the most to least similar to the font you currently have selected. The slider at the top of the generator page allows you to change the contrast between the pairings. Their "Font Visualizer" shows the graph and axes on which they determine the similarities and differences between fonts, and their "How it Works" page does exactly that (tells you how they pair fonts).
Ever see a sign, logo, or sentence and wonder "What font is that in?" Now you can find out. Simply upload a photo with the typeface you are looking for and MyFonts's "WhatTheFont" page will look through its collection of over 230,000 fonts and find the one in your photo. We experimented with their finder, throwing in photos had warped font or embroidered words on clothes, and MyFonts found the correct font every time as opposed to some other font finders on the internet. Best yet, MyFonts not require any browser extension or data on your end to use their font finder.
Stock Photography
1. Unsplash
Unsplash has been and remains our go-to source for free stock photography photos. They have a range of "creativity" throughout their website with some photos leaning toward the generic business stock image and others experimenting artistically with color, light, etc. There are different download resolution options, and account creation is not required to download any photos. If you are looking to hire a photographer in your area, each photographer's profile will indicate an "available to hire" option. There is a paid option called "Unsplash+" that gives access to more photos, but there is a filter option to only view free photos when you search.
2. Pexels
Pexels is another wonderful resource for free stock photos. They have a similar layout to Unsplash and do not require an account to download images. One of our favorite features on Pexels is the option to filter photos based on color. You can choose from one of their color options or enter a unique HEX code. All photos that contain that HEX code within your search will filter. This is particularly useful when you are creating a mood board or looking for images for a particular brand.
3. Burst
While Burst's catalog of photos is smaller than Unsplash and Pexels, they offer a unique take for small business free stock photography. Their stock photographs are high-quality, and the website is easy to navigate; however, what makes them unique are their "Business Ideas" and "Resources" sections. The "Resources" section is a blog that gives different tutorials related to photography and marketing. The "Business Ideas" section is a whole page dedicated to case studies on online small businesses that have done well during the year. Burst offers a free photo package, resources for drop shippers, trust-worthy manufacturers, and more on a single page. They have essentially done the research for small businesses who are considering delving into that particular business all for free.
4. Pixabay
With over 4 million stock images, Pixabay has one of the biggest royalty-free sotck photo catalogs on the internet. When searching for photos, you can filter to view photos that contain different colors and even choose photos that contain transparent backgrounds. Pixabay offers more than just photography on their website, so there may be vector artwork or icons in your search if you are looking for something specific.
Stock Video
1. Pexels
With many high-quality vertical videos, we would recommend Pexels to anybody who needs videos for social media or mobile projects. Their website is very easy to use, navigate, and all you have to do to preview a video is hover your mouse above the one your are considering. Pexels also has many videos that could serve as mockups (such as this one), so you can make more intuitive brand projects or resources to showcase your products and designs.
2. Pixabay
Like we said before, Pixabay offers more than stock photography. They also have a massive catalog of royalty-free stock videos to use in any upcoming projects. Many of their videos are in 4K or HD, though their vertical video filter results in more SD options. Animations are also available to download for free.
3. Freepik
Freepik has an immense amount of free stock videos with people in them; however, you do need to filter through their premium videos in order to find them. They are on this list because of the massive catalog of content on their website, but there is a daily download limit of three videos, so choose carefully.
4. Coverr
Made by filmmakers and entrepreneurs who were looking for cinema-quality videos for their projects, Coverr has a catalog of thousands of free videos (licensed for commercial use) that have been downloaded over 5 million times. The creators of Coverr set out on this "side hustle" to fill the void of great videos available for new businesses at a low cost. Many videos on Coverr's website are completely free; however there is a Coverr+ option that allows you access to all videos and WAV music for $6 a month.
Mockup Templates
Our main criteria for mockup template resources were that the templates had to be high-quality and downloadable directly from the website. This eliminated many websites that send you through rabbit hole after rabbit hole only to not be able to download the mockup you wanted.
1. Mr. Mockup
Mr. Mockup has a wide array of free, high-quality mockups ready to use. Simply click the "Freebies" button on the website, and you have a catalog full of different options. Download of these freebies does not require you to enter any of your information, though there is a donate option if you feel inclined to contribute anything monetarily.
House of Mockups has a small rotating section of free mockups on their website. These mockups, especially for packaging, are very unique and visually captivating. The only downside is that you must put in your billing information in order to check out and download the mockups; however, no payment information is required. There is the option to show your support by donating what you can to the creators.
3. Freepik
Freepik really does offer it all, including PSD mockup templates. While you do need to filter through their premium offerings in order to find the free mockups, Freepik has a large amount of great free mockups to choose from. (Premium mockups have a crown in the top left corner of their listing.) There is a download limit of three files per day, so be selective in which files you choose to try.
When we started using Affinity Photo for certain projects, we found a massive lack of mockup temaplates available and virtually none that were free. Coming very soon to our shop, Albaledo Media will start offering a rotating selection of free Affinity Photo mockup templates for those of you who are looking for them.
Video Editing
Considered the industry standard for many film editors around the world, DaVinci Resolve has been used to edit and/or color massive films and commercials, including Black Widow, Dr. Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, Everything Everywhere All At Once, La La Land, and more. DaVinci Resolve is free to use; however, if you would like to buy the full version of the software, it is a one-time cost of $295. DaVinci Resolve works on Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems and is best suited for more advanced editors. We could go into all of the incredible features within DaVinci Resolve, but we think its free price tag and extensive list of major motion pictures speak for themselves.
CapCut is an extremely useful solution to quickly create videos for short-form content. They have multiple options for titles, video transitions, and effects. Songs are available within the app to use for free, and they have an included copyright check that you can run to make sure your video will not have audio removed after posting. It is also easy to keyframe simple animations such as scaling, opacity, and rotation. We found that CapCut's warp stabilizer is one of the best that we have ever used (it made Premiere's seem like child's play). Combined with the fact that there is an option to change the scale ratio of your project with the click of a button (including into a 9:16 format for reels, shorts, and more) and no watermark, CapCut is possibly the best video editor for editing on your phone or tablet for short-form content.
We're sure professional video editors would internally scream at the thought of putting iMovie in a list with DaVinci Resolve, but here it is. iMovie is a wonderful resource for MacOS users who are new to video editing or who simply want to quickly create a polished video. iMovie is very user friendly, supports cross-platform editing with Apple Devices, and supports 4K editing. You can edit iMovie videos on your phone, tablet, and computer.
There is no trial or demo version of Blender, so their software is a completely free tool with multiple uses, including video editing for 3-D projects. There are video editing features such as cutting and splicing, but the majority of Blender's video editing software is dedicated to rendering and modeling your 3-D animation. Blender also has an audio mixer that allows you to sync, scrub, and view the waveforms.
Another form of software with multiple pay tiers, including a free "lite" version, Hitfilm Express is a great resource for editors looking for a substantial VFX library at a low cost. There are 100+ hours of tutorials available for new users. Their free version has 127 visual effects and supports unlimited exports up to HD.
Design Inspiration
1. Logobook
Logobook is both a book and a website that contains a massive catalog of letters, numbers, shapes, and objects all used in logos around the world. This resource is especially useful for garnering design inspiration for letterform projects. The simple website allows you to choose a category (such as the letter "A") and view all of the forms that letter, shape, or number has taken in logos in the past.
2. Fonts In Use
Do you ever have a font you want to try on a project, but you're not sure how to approach the design? Fonts In Use is "an independent archive of typography" that takes thousands of designs and organizes them by font. Using the website's archive, you can look up a particular font and view hundreds of designs that have been made with it as well as which other fonts were also used within the designs.
3. Pinterest
Pinterest is not just a tool for finding great recipes but also a wonderful resource to search for design ideas. Because Pinterest is image-based, you simply search keywords along with terms such as "design" or "graphic design", and thousands of design ideas and examples pop up.
Best Website Gallery is exactly what you think it is: a site with a gallery of hundreds of incredible website designs. What sets this website gallery apart from most is how you are able to filter through websites based on their colors, CMS, style, and framework.
5. Collect UI
For all you UI designers out there, Collect UI is an inspiration board that updates its designs daily. Contributors choose designs from daily ui challenge (and other designs, of course) on Dribble and post their favorites to the website. Collect UI is especially fond of this approach because these designs are created without the pressure of a client or supervisor; therefore, these designs are more playful, experimental, and inspirational than you may find elsewhere. You can filter through designs based on their function (for example, some categories include "Landing Page", "Sign Up", and "Dropdown") as well as view the colors used once you click through to a specific design.
Icons and Illustrations
1. Ionicons
Ionicons are free and open-source icons available for designers to use in iOS, Android, web, and desktop apps. They are very high-quality and come in outline, filled, and sharp (non-rounded corners) versions to fit the feel of your project. You may download the icons as SVG or in web font.
Humaaans is a wonderful project crafted by Pablo Stanley that easily allows users to create human icons with different skin tones, hairstyles, and more. All illustrations are free for personal and commercial use and can be edited in browser (using Blush). You may also download the full free library to use in design software such as Figma, Adobe XD, and more. There is a premium option available
The tool that allows you to edit the Humaaan avatars (mentioned above) also has a generous library of its own. Blush has some incredibly unique and quirky icons perfect for a creative project. Their illustrations may be used personally or commercially, but there is a download limit without the pro plan.
Feather Icons is a library of 287 premium, neutral, open-source icons that may be used on any project. The website is especially simple to use and download from. If you paste a HEX code in the color box text on the right of the screen, all icons will turn that color, and you may download them accordingly.
5. Iconoir
Iconoir is a 100% free and open-source icon set created by Lucio Burgio. There are over one thousand icons in SVG format, all of which are available to preview on the website before downloading. The icons are completely free, but you can support the creator and project on Open Collective if you choose to.
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