Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Copyright Free Vector Clip Art Anyone?

If you're like me and you dabble in any form of desktop publishing such as flyer design, then you've needed an image or two at one time or another. I don't know how many times I've asked this question of someone, "Hey where'd you get that image?" and the response has been Google Images. Even I will admit to doing this when I was unaware that many of these images are copyrighted. What's a copyrighted image? Well it is basically an image that cannot be used without the consent of its creator for commercial projects.

So since I could not draw to save my own life so to speak I had to come up with another solution to find really good Copyright Free Clip Art besides bugging my teenage daughter to draw them for me. A copyright free image is one that is free of any type of restriction. There are 2 Vector Clip Art websites that I frequently visit, the Open Clip Art Library and Clker.

Open Clip Art Library hosts 40,000+ open source free vector clip art images. What does that mean exactly? People submit their images for free from around the world so that those like myself can use them freely without fear of retribution. New images are uploaded to the site daily. You can download clip art in both SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and PNG  (Portable Network Graphics) formats.

You can also search for specific images by entering your search terms in their search box. Some search terms can produce pages of results. So if I search for "weddings", I can find some beautiful images.

The information next to each image tells the Image name, who designed it, the date it was submitted to the library, the number of page views it has received and how many people have added it to their favorites.

Images are also organized in special collections like vehicles, and in themes like Halloween and Summer. No attribution is necessary for any downloaded content. So spread the work about this great resource. It's Free!

Clker also hosts thousands of Free Vector Clip Art images. However images submitted can also be edited on the fly by other members and saved as entirely new images. I've seen dozens of variations of just one image alone.

Here's a sample of what a typical "flower" search produces.

Clker also allows you to Vectorize your images. What does this mean exactly? Well they have this special tool that allows you to upload photos and make them look clip art like so to speak. I've never used this feature as I don't particularly fancy this type of image, but you never know, you just might like it.

What I've always liked about both sites is that in searching for a particular image, you receive a plethora of  images in return, hassel free. As stated earlier, I use Vector Clip Art for my Free Flyer Templates and Flyer Tutorials on my Graphic Design site FlyerTutor.

So do you have a great resource for Copyright Free Vector Clip Art?

1 comment:

  1. Great post, you have pointed out some superb details, I will tell my friends that this is a very informative blog thanks.Clipping Path Services

    ReplyDelete