The Most Popular Free Design Resources

Design Resources can be expensive, especially if a client does not have imagery, icons, and/or patterns to support their brand. Responsive Website Design often relies on flexible imagery, scalable icons, and adaptable patterns to ensure consistency across devices. Below is a list of free resource websites that we have found to be very useful in the design process! From what I know, these resources are absolutely 100% free; however, there may always be an exception to the rule, so just make sure you check the on licensing information.

PATTERNS

My favorite for patterns would have to be One Hundred Patterns, as it provides very abstract patterns that can maybe spark an idea. Cgtextures has been around for quite some time, but has always delivered in supplying various textures when in a time crunch. Hosting & Maintenance helps ensure these visual assets load reliably and perform efficiently on live websites. Subtle patterns focus on.. You guessed it, subtle patterns, so it is good to combine some of these with color. ADA Website Compliance requires visual elements like patterns and icons to remain accessible and readable for all users.

STOCK IMAGERY

For free imagery, I mostly stick to IM Creator or FreeImages, as they are much easier to search for specific photos that one might need. Unsplash is a nice site and has a great library, but it doesn’t have a nice way to search for these types of photos. Stocksnap is a new one that I came across, and it seems to deliver in desperate measures, but it still seems like it can use more of a library, though. Social Media Marketing frequently depends on accessible stock imagery to create consistent and engaging visual content.

If you have any other additions to this list, write it down in the comments belo,w and I’ll take a look!