25 websites for free illustrations
Vector graphics, photos, famous works of art...
Introduction
Need a picture to illustrate your article? Well, you can just look through Google Images and use any that take your fancy, right? Wrong! Being viewable on Google does not necessarily equal free to use. And sometimes it’s hard to discern who owns the copyright, and what the terms of use are.
The following websites are much safer bets, but always check the licence offered and make sure you adhere to its conditions. Even if the licence is CC0, meaning that the picture is free to use and no attribution is required, I think it’s nice to give credit to the photographer or artist, where this is known.
Yes, I know that Substack has a built-in link to Unsplash, which I find to be very good. But Unsplash is not the only game in town.
Anyway, here are the sites to explore.
British Library
Great for old illustrations that are free to use. The collection is being updated continually.
Canva
Create your own logos and other illustrations. It’s especially good for having ready-made templates for various social media, including Facebook, YouTube thumbnails and blog banners. It has a decent selection of icons too.
Chicago Art Institute
Famous paintings available for use free of charge.
Creative Commons Search Engine
This is the original version, which in my opinion is less flaky than the so-called improved version.
DD
A powerful AI-assisted illustration search engine.
Design wizard
This is part of PikWizard (see below).
Freepik
This has vector drawings as well.
Gratisography
An interesting selection of free illustrations.
Heritage library
Free-to-use vintage illustrations.
Library of Congress
Free-to-use photos and other media.
Museo
Search a number of museums at the same time. Check individual results for terms of use.
National Gallery, London
Free-to-use works of art.
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Free-to-use works of art.
Negative Space
Another collection of beautiful illustrations that are free to use.
Pexels
Beautiful, hi-res photos.
PikWizard
This has a good selection of beautiful hi-res photos, free to use, with no attribution required (though I think we should credit the photographer wherever possible). There is also a very handy design wizard (illustrated above) which allows you to edit the photo before you download it, and even resize it automatically for posting on different social media platforms. Indeed, it is very much like Canva in this respect. (It’s available as a separate application too: Design Wizard.)
There is a selection of background graphics too. Well worth checking out. There are premium photos as well, but you obviously have to pay to use them.
Pixabay
Beautiful, hi-res photos.
Rawpixel
A great collection of artworks, many of which are free to use.
RGB Stock Photos
Beautiful, hi-res photos.
Smithsonian Institute
Photos and other media, free to use.
The Noun Project
A great icon collection. I discovered this from a comment by Charlie Guo in Substack Office Hours.
The Wellcome Collection
A good collection of paintings and drawings, especially with regard to medical subjects, free to use with attribution. Thanks to Michael Crossland for the heads-up about this site.
Unsplash
Beautiful, hi-res photos, and built-in to Substack, of course.
Vecteezy
Great vector images as well as photos.
Vecteezy people of colour
A section devoted to graphics featuring people of colour, as the name suggests!
Visual Hunt
It searches for good quality pix that have a Creative Commons licence. It’s very fast, and comes up with good results. It wasn’t at all phased by a search I did for People In Cafe With Laptop. Highly recommended.
I’ve just noticed that Substack has added a ‘Generate’ option to its Images section. It seems a bit random to be honest. For example, the graphic at the top of this article is meant to be a schoolteacher. Hmmm. Still, it’s an alternative to faffing about with Dall-E (which is great — when it’s available). Incidentally, the ‘Bonus Resource’ graphic was created in Canva in about 5 seconds (yeah, yeah I know: it shows!)
I hope you found this collection of websites useful.
Thank you. This is very useful and good sources of inspiration.
Yeoooow! Very helpful! Thanks, Terry