This page lists websites where you can access either images or fonts to download to use in your designs. Most sites are completely free to use or have free sections as a part of the site.
The drop-down page, For More Information, provides links to articles we've collected to expand your knowledge on designing infographics, elements of designing infographics, color selection, accessibility, and various topics to aid you.
The following terms will come up often as we discuss free image sources. Read over the terms and conditions of each site you try so you know exactly when and what type of attribution is required.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Various types of Creative Commons licenses range from allowing any type of use with no attribution to allowing only certain uses and no changes.
What is the public domain?
Works in the public domain are those whose copyrights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Finding something online does not mean it is in the public domain.
What is royalty-free?
Royalty-free images aren’t necessarily free. In most cases, you’ll have to pay a one-time fee to obtain the rights to use the image. Then you can use it as many times as you like. The “free” in “royalty-free” only means that you do not have to pay royalties to the owner of the image every time you use it.
What about AI images?
AI image generator tools are great for creating customized content but tread carefully when using them commercially. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, AI-generated content isn't copyright-protected, but this doesn’t mean that copyrighted works haven’t been used to train the various AI models these tools use. If you’re planning on using any AI image generators for free images, be sure to take a close look at all of the terms & conditions and fine print that comes with the commercial use of AI-generated art.
Mehvar, Mitra. "21+ Free Stock Image Sites to Find Photos (+ for Commercial Use)." Buffer, 12 Nov. 2024, https://buffer.com/.
Image Quest (Library database, highly recommend!)
Access to more than two million images from some of the best collections in the world, including DK Images, Getty Images, the National Geographic Society, Oxford Scientific, and other leading sources. Image Quest is organized by subject matter and full searchable. All images are licensed for non-commercial educational use.
Pixabay
Pixabay.com is a free stock photography and royalty-free stock media website. It is used for sharing photos, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage, music and sound effects, exclusively under the custom Pixabay license, which generally allows the free use of the material with some restrictions.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a website dedicated to proprietary stock photography. Since 2021, it has been owned by Getty Images. The website claims over 330,000 contributing photographers and generates more than 13 billion photo impressions per month on their growing library of over 5 million photos.
MorgueFile
Morguefile is a free photo archive “for creatives, by creatives.” Founded by Michael Connors in the early Internet days of 1996, the site was created to serve as a free image exchange for creative professionals and teachers to use in their work. This same mission remains true today: we are a community-based free photo site, and all photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not. The photos have been contributed by a wide range of creatives from around the world, ranging from amateur photo hobbyists to professionals.
FreeImages
Freeimages was launched in February 2001 as an alternative for expensive stock photography. The idea was to create a site where creative people could exchange their photos for inspiration or work. The site has evolved into the massive community you see today — there are over 2,500,000 registered users and around 400,000 photos online.
New Old Stock
Vintage photos from the public archives. Free of known copyright restrictions. Recapturing History.
Publicdomainvectors.org, offers copyright-free vector images in popular .eps, .svg, .ai and .cdr formats. To the extent possible under law, uploaders on this site have waived all copyright to their vector images. You are free to edit, distribute, and use the images for unlimited commercial purposes without asking permission. Although not required, they appreciate every link back or mention of their website.
Pexels is another popular platform for free stock photos. All their images are easily searchable with tags and keywords. They also have a variety of free stock videos for you to use in your designs. The way Pexels organizes the images on the homepage and the Discover page by either color or by commonly searched terms makes it easy to find whatever you’re looking for, likely in a few seconds.
StockSnap.io features a large library of free stock photos and adds hundreds of new images daily. Each image is categorized with tags, which makes it super easy to find. Another useful feature of StockSnap.io is you can check out the views and downloads for each image. This makes it easier to find popular or trending photos. For quality assurance, each photographer has to follow strict guidelines to be able to register and showcase their work on the website. All images in the StockSnap library are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means they’re free and require no attribution.
Gratisography focuses on quality more than quantity, which is why they only upload new images once a week. All their images are quirky and unique, and you likely won’t find them anywhere else. They aim to be different from other free stock photography platforms—to stop being generic and showcase photos that stand out.
Reshot is a useful platform for finding stunning free stock photos from talented photographers around the world. They’re committed to providing the world’s best visual content. Each image in the Reshot library is carefully picked and can’t be found anywhere else on the internet. All of their photos are free to use commercially and editorially; no attribution is required.
Picography is a simple website with a beautiful collection of free stock photos. All images are organized with tags and are easy to find with keywords, but you can also browse through different categories at the top. You can use all the images on Picography under their free license.
Stockvault.net has over 100,000+ free stock photos from photographers all over the world. They upload new photos, vector files, and graphics every week related to animals, transportation, nature, objects, and texture. Their images have been downloaded more than 25 million times, and can easily be used by students and designers for their personal or non-commercial design projects.
NegativeSpace has a community of photographers who upload their work to the platform for students and designers looking to perfect their creative projects. With 10+ categories, including abstract, architecture, food, street, and technology, NegativeSpace is a great place to look for unique stock photos for free. All images uploaded in the NegativeSpace library are free for personal or commercial use under the CC0 license.
Styled Stock is a dedicated platform for free, feminine stock photography. They have a limited number of images on the platform, but each image is meaningful for women entrepreneurs. If you're looking for images related to women business professionals, fashion, beauty, florals, and other feminine topics, Styled Stock can help you in your search. The collection is free for your personal use or commercial projects. You can check out their license details here.
The ever-growing platform of ISO Republic adds new images every day. With categories ranging from tech, landscapes, and architecture, ISO works as a one-stop shop for everything stock. Other than free, high-resolution photos, ISO Republic also features free videos for download and use in your designs. All of their visuals are available for use under the CC0 license.
Foodiesfeed offers thousands of free high-resolution stock photos related to food. If you’re looking for photos for your food blog or website, you will love going through their collections. All their images are fresh and authentic, and hand-picked by their team. Their work is published under the CC0 license.
Miller, April K. & Katherine Loving
Sheikh, Mahnoor. "25 Incredible Sites With Free Stock Photos." Visme, 12 Sep. 2020, https://visme.co/blog.
DaFont
Archive of freely downloadable fonts. Browse by alphabetical listing, by style, by author or by popularity.
UrbanFonts
UrbanFonts features an amazing collection of free fonts, premium fonts and free dingbats with over 8,000 freeware fonts.
Finding the perfect font for your next project one can be difficult and time-consuming. However, we have compiled a list of free fonts for commercial use that will make designing and crafting easier and more fun!
Looking for the most popular free fonts? ✓ Click to find the most popular fonts on FontSpace & preview all of our free downloads.
This free design resource features an extensive library of high-quality fonts with clearly defined licenses that are easy to download.
Google offers a directory of web fonts so users can easily locate and add any font within seconds. All fonts in the library are open source, so designers can modify them as they choose.
Miller, April K. & Katherine Loving
Lile, Samantha. "60+ Totally Free Design Resources for Non-Designers." Visme, 28 Mar. 2017, https://visme.co/blog/.
