We all know the phrase “a bad workman blames his tools”. It’s all well and good to say that, but when it comes to design, having some great tools at your fingertips can go a long way towards taking your designs to the next level.
Here at jovoto we want to help designers and creatives to be the best that you can be. Because of that, we decided to put together a post here on our blog that links to some of the greatest free design resources.
Bookmark this post and come back whenever you need design resources to take your designs to the next level, whether it’s fonts, icons, textures or anything else!
We will update this post over time, so if you have any suggestions for great resources that you feel should be added, please leave them in the comments at the end of the post! And remember, if you use any third party material or stock material in an idea that you submit on jovoto, make sure you mention that in your submission. If you don’t, you might run into issues if the client want’s to license your idea!
Free Fonts
When it comes to all kinds of design work, typography is key. Sure, you can get a lot out of your system fonts, but they are not always going to cut the mustard. Premium fonts can be super expensive to buy, but there are some awesome free font resources out there. Here are some of our favourites:
DaFont
A huge collection of fonts used by many designers. Everything is categorised really nicely.
1001 Free Fonts
Does what is says on the tin – except since they started they now have way more than 1001 fonts available! Great resource which, again, has great categorisation.
Font Squirrel
Font Squirrel is a great resource for fonts. What I love about it is that it’s highly curated, so you don’t tend to find low quality fonts.
Google Fonts
If you are designing for web, Google Fonts is a great resource as you will be designing with fonts that you know will easily be able to used on websites – plus the collection of fonts is pretty awesome!
Some other great free font resources:
Fonts Bytes
Abstract Fonts
Urban Fonts
Font Space
Acid Fonts
Search Free Fonts
Free Icons
Icons are a hugely valuable tool when it comes to the world of modern design. Whether you are designing for web or print, you are going to need to use icons. Making them yourself can be great – but it’s time consuming. Why reinvent the wheel when there are some fantastic resources out there? Here are some of our favourite places to get free icons:
The Noun Project
A huge resource for icons – type most things and you will find a great icon to use!
iconmonstr
iconmonstr is at the top of my list. What’s great is that they have a large library of icons, which you can customise the colour and size of before you download them. Highly recommended!
Flat Icon
If you love flat design, this is a great resource for icons. Choose from 150,000+ icons in a variety of styles and themes.
Captain Icon
This is a great icon set of over 350 icons. Sure, this website doesn’t have a huge variety, but the quality is extremely high from a very talented designer.
Iconfinder
Iconfinder is a great resource with almost a million icons to choose from. They do have some premium icons but you will find many free icons for your projects!
Some other great free icon resources:
Icon Archive
Iconspedia
Mr Icons
Free Stock Photography
Stock photography is something that most designers have to use on a daily basis. Using many of the popular premium stock photography sites can be expensive and often, uninspiring. Fortunately there are many great photography websites out there that are completely free to use. Here are some of the best:
Pexels
This is my go-to free stock photography website. Not only do they have a huge collection, the photos are great quality and very much fit my style!
StockSnap.io
Another incredible free stock photography website. Hundreds of new photos are added weekly, so this is definitely one to bookmark.
Pixabay
A huge collection of over 660,000 photos – what more could you want!
Unsplash
Not a huge library but the quality is amazing. 10 new photos go onto the website every 10 days. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
Gratisography
Another smaller stock website, but again, great quality photos added on a regular basis.
Some other great free stock photography resources:
Negative Space
Pic Jumbo
New Old Stock
Chrome Extensions
If you use Chrome as your browser and are not using extensions to help you with your design work, you are missing out! There are some great tools to help you get the job done quicker and better! Check out some of these cool extensions:
Awesome Screenshot
With the amount of times I need to take screenshots of webpages, this tool works perfectly. The best part, it will take a screenshot of a whole web page, scrolling including. No more stitching multiple screenshots together!
What Font
Seen a cool font you like on a website? With this tool you can easily find out what font it is. Great tool for designers, especially those obsessed with typography and web fonts!
Page Ruler
Page ruler – does what it says on the tin! If you design for web, this is going to save you some time and heartache!
Image Downloader
Sometimes a “right-click” won’t do the job – and who wants to scroll through css anyway? This is a great way to quickly download images that you see on a website without hassle.
Eye Dropper
See a colour you love online? Add an eye dropped to your browser and get the hex immediately. I use this tool every day!
In Summary
Whether you are just getting started with design, or are a veteran designer – free design resources can really help save you time and money, so we hope our list has been helpful.
We know that many people in the community will have some great free design resources to add to the list. Please do feel free to share yours in the comments below – we look forward to seeing them!