Everyone who owns a website needs to know some design resources. They help you to do the job quicker and easier. It can be images, fonts, graphics, or any other resource.
Fortunately, there are great design resources where you can find already made assets that can be modified and used on your website or other projects. And almost everything is free.
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Why You Need Design Resources?
Well, the answer is easy – to make your work easier. These little assets help you to focus on your work and don’t worry about other things. Also, it helps you to save money and don’t pay for design assets.
For example, if you need an image or a graphic, if you don’t know how to make them, you have to pay for it. And here comes design resources. Pre-made assets that are easy to use and free.
Also Read: UI Design Fundamentals
And resources can be images, graphics, icons, font, tools, etc. Anything that helps to make your website beautiful.
I collected these design resources and want to share them with you. Some resources I use myself, some I knew and some of them were found accidentally. All these resources are free to use, but sometimes you have to attribute the author.
Now, let’s dive in and see the full list of great and free assets that will make your work more fun and faster.
Illustration Resources
Illustrations are a great asset to have in your toolbox. Every website needs some kind of graphic. Let’s see the list of free illustration resources.
Open Peeps
Open Peeps is a hand-drawn illustration library. It contains more than 40 characters. It has three types of characters:
- Busts
- Sitting
- Standing
Selection is diverse. Characters include men, women, old, young, etc. So you definitely find the right one for you.
You can download the whole library or just individual characters. It allows you to download in PNG or SVG. So, you can modify them as you wish. You can use them in design tools like Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD.
This library is great for those who want to have unique characters in their design.
Iconscout
Iconscout is a great design resource. Actually, it is one of my favorites. They have so many high-quality illustrations. It offers illustrations like characters, tech, vehicles, web, etc.
Iconscout has illustration collections which are great because you can build cohesive designs. For example, you can choose a startup illustration pack where every asset looks like each other.
And another great thing about Iconscout is that it also has free icons and 3D illustration collections. Not many resources offer that.
Blush
Another amazing website is Blush. It is also collection-based but a little bit different. What they offer is a collection of characters and scenes. And they look very professional.
What you can do is choose characters or scenes and modify them – change colors, body parts, background, etc. And it is done in the browser. The only downside is that with the free version you can only download a small PNG.
Blush is one of my favorite design resources and I use it a lot.
Control
Control is a collection of more than a hundred illustrations. It works with Figma, Sketch, Adobe Illustrator. It contains unique characters and scenes. With the free version, you get only the PNG versions of illustrations.
Every scene has different versions and you can choose between solid or linear design. Very modern and unique-looking designs you get with Control.
3D Bay
3D Bay is one of the best free design resources. Especially for those who need high-quality 3D illustrations. The library consists of many 3D illustrations. You can download them for free.
The library has hundreds of high-quality, different scene illustrations. You can download these illustrations in PNG format. You can choose three different sizes: small, medium, and big. It’s free for commercial use and doesn’t require attribution.
Undraw
Undraw is one of the most popular design resources out there. It has hundreds and hundreds of designs. You can search almost any subject and they will have a design for that.
It is great for web design. If you build a website design, then Undraw will help you very much. You can change the colors of the illustrations or save them as SVG and change how you like them.
DrawKit
If you are looking for beautiful vector illustrations, then check out DrawKit. It is a collection of 100% free, hand-drawn illustrations that are updated weekly. They also offer icons.
You can pick your collection, download it, and use it for free or commercial use. Collections include people at work, transportation, education, restaurants, and much more.
Open Doodles
Another cool resource is Open Doodles. It is a sketchy character-based illustration resource. You will get very unique characters and it is good sometimes to stand out and don’t look like others.
Great thing is that besides characters it also allows you to download compositions made with these characters. And it also offers a generator, where you can choose different color palettes or create your own.
Also, shows some examples of how you can use them. File formats are PNG and SVG and it is totally free.
PatternPad
If you are searching for a pattern-based design then you definitely should check out PatternPad. It is an amazing tool for creating patterns. And very beautiful and professional patterns.
The way it works is you choose pattern preset and then you change colors, columns, rows, and the result can be as diverse as you wish. You can download it as PNG, JPEG, or SVG.
Error 404
And the last illustration design resource is Error 404. And it is specifically for 404 error pages. If you want your 404 pages to be awesome, then you should definitely try this out.
You can use the illustrations to create a beautiful 404 page or see their examples and build accordingly. This is a great tool for web designers. But can be useful for bloggers too.
Image Resources
Every website needs images whether it be landscape, people, or other subjects. And you must have good quality images. Let’s see some image design resources.
Unsplash
Unsplash is an amazing place where you can find thousands of free and high-quality mages for free. You will find any type of images you want – portraits, landscapes, cars, music, tech, etc.
All the images are very high-quality. It allows you to download images in different sizes. Also, if you are a photographer yourself, you can upload your work there.
Pixabay
Pixabay is very similar to Unsplash. Thousands of high-quality images you can find and download. But what is different is that it offers not only images but illustrations, videos, and music.
Their library is very good. A very good library of vector graphics and illustrations. Also, if you want to have a video background on your website, you definitely will find the one here.
Pexels
Great image design resources can be found on Pexels. It is like the two websites mentioned above. Search for keywords and you will find what you are looking for.
Also, like Pixabay, Pexels offer a video library too. Almost any kind of video – people, landscape, ocean, tech, architecture, etc. Really great website for those who need images and videos.
Remove
A really great too for those who want to remove background from images. Remove does that perfectly. Many times you want to insert an image on your website but you don’t want a background.
It is simple. Just upload your image and it will remove the background in seconds. Yes, it is just that simple and will save you a ton of time. You don’t need Photoshop for that anymore.
Duotone
I love Duotone. It makes my work so much easier and quicker. A duotone is a tool that adds a duotone effect to images. It is one of my favorite design resources.
You just upload your image, pick two colors and that’s it. You will have an image with a duotone effect. Also, you can use their image library. Also, they offer color presets.
Icon Resources
The website design resources list won’t be complete without icons. Every website needs some kind of icon and if you have a different one, you will stand out.
Feather Icons
Feather Icons is a very simple but powerful tool to use. Its library consists of over 200 high-quality, simple, and minimalistic icons for your website. You can download it all at once or individually.
Also, it has a simple customization tool on the website. It allows you to change different parameters like color, stroke width, and size of the icon. And the library has every icon you will need like arrows, camera, bell, menu, columns, folders, and much more.
Iconfinder
Very powerful tool and one of the greatest icon design resources. With Iconfinder you can easily find any icon you like. You can filter it by sets, categories, or style. The free version includes over 300 000 icons which is a lot.
But the greatest thing is that it has different kinds of icons like glyph, outline, flat, 3D. You name it. Download formats are PNG, SVG, AI, ICO, ICNS, and you can pick size too. With the free version, you have to attribute the author with the link.
Remix Icon
One of my favorite icon design resources is Remix Icon. It is simple to use and very powerful at the same time. The library consists of more than 2000 professional and clean icons.
You can search for icons or filter them by categories like business, device, finance, map, media, etc. And the awesome feature is that not only you can get the icon in SVG or PNG, but you can also get it as an HTML tag and insert it on your website. Great for web developers too.
CSS GG
But when we talk about icons for developers, CSS GG is the best. It is a library of high-quality, professional, and clean icons. You can get it in formats like SVG, FIG, XD, JSON.
But the best thing is that you can get a CSS code of the icon and change its style however you want. You can edit on the website or your code editor. It is best for web developers but WordPress users can use it also.
Shape
And this last icon resource is amazing. The Shape is not only the icon library but it also offers illustrations. With the free version, you can only get PNG format and use it for personal use.
And besides static icons and illustrations, it has an animated icons and illustrations library. So if you want to add more than just icons to your website, you definitely need to check this library. The Shape allows you to edit icons and illustrations on their website.
You can change the animation speed, colors, borders, etc. Really a great tool to have in your arsenal.
Color Resources
Colors are one of the most important in web design and design in general. So, it is a great advantage to have good color tools in your toolbox.
Happy Hues
First on the colors list is Happy Hues. It is one of the best design resources I can recommend. It is for web designers and makes your job much easier. Choosing the colors for your website is one of the hardest things and Happy Hues is the help.
It is very simple – you choose the color palette and it shows immediately how this color will look on a website. Colors are applied to everything starting from background to buttons and text. So, it makes it easier for you to choose the right color palette for your website.
Color Hunt
Color Hunt is a great color palette tool. If you have a problem with choosing a color like me, use this website and the problem will be gone. I use it every time I do something that needs color. I always use Color Hunt for my feature images.
It is simple. Color Hunt has hundreds of 4-color palettes. You can choose a specific color and see the palette. Or pick cold, warm, neon, or pastel colors. Very easy to use but very powerful tool.
Colorsinspo
Colorsinspo is very similar to Color Hunt but a little bit more powerful. You can see beautiful 4-color palettes but it has additional tools like a color wheel, swatches, HSLA system, etc.
Also, has a gradients library, brand colors, and picked solid colors. On this website, you will find posts and tutorials about color, inspirations, and freebies too. And Colorsinspo has a plugin for Sketch, AdobeXD, Photoshop, and Illustrator.
Coolors
A very popular tool among designers. With Coolors you can see many different color palettes but you also can generate your own palette. It allows you to create a 5-color palette.
You can see shades for each color, save to favorites, adjust hue, saturation, brightness, and download your color palette. Also, has a color blindness feature.
Another great feature is that you can upload any image and it will generate a color palette from that image. It also offers an iOS app, Adobe & Chrome extensions.
UI Gradients
When I talk about color design resources, I can’t miss out on UI Gradients. This tool has helped me numerous times. Very simple to use the app to generate and create beautiful gradients.
You can scroll and find great gradients that can be used in your design. You can choose a color and see gradients for that color. You can save gradients as JPG for reference or copy a CSS code. It makes it easier for designers and developers to use this tool.
Pigment
Really great help for people who can’t choose colors. A Pigment is a tool that helps you to choose two colors that work well together. It is great if you want to choose background and foreground colors.
Pigment offers an endless list of great color pairs. You can search for a specific color and also saturation and lightning. Then it gives you the HEX codes of colors and you can easily use them on your design.
Font Resources
Fonts are as important in web design as colors. You can really stand out among others if you choose the right font for your website. Let’s see some great fon design resources.
Fontfabric
If you want to have different fonts on your website, Fontfabric is a great place to find beautiful free fonts. Many websites use Google fonts and that is cool but sometimes you need to have some different flavors.
On Fontfabric you will find a range of very beautiful fonts. Their library consists of sans, serif, display, rust, and script fonts. Also, you can visually see how fonts look with words and colors.
Fonts Arena
Another place where you can find beautiful free fonts is Fonts Arena. Design resources for fonts are easy to find but not all are great. But Fonts Arena is really an awesome place to find very beautiful fonts.
Their library includes serif, sans, monospace, slab, and other font styles. With these free fonts, you can beautify your website more. Also, here you will find very weird fonts that can come in handy.
Type Scale
Type Scale is an amazing tool for typography and one of the best design resources I can recommend. The way it works is, you choose a font and then it shows different sizes of that font. This is a great way to see how different heading sizes and paragraphs will look on your website.
It allows you to choose font size and scale. Shows you the heading and paragraph pair to visualize everything. Also, it generates CSS code that can be used on your website. Really cool tool for designers.
Font Joy
One of my favorite design resources for typography is Font Joy. Very easy-to-use yet powerful tool. It generates font pairs for you. Choosing the right pair of fonts can be difficult sometimes. And this tool is here to help us.
It can generate as many pairs as you want. It allows you to set contrast differently – more contrast you want between fonts or less. So, when you design a website, this tool will come in handy and really make your work easier.
Design Tools
Free design tools are great design resources. Tools like these make your work much easier and faster. You don’t have to buy Photoshop or Illustrator to make great feature images or other types of images.
Figma
Figma is amazing and one of my favorite design resources. It is a very powerful web design and prototyping app. And the free version is enough. I use the free version and have no problems.
With Figma, you can build web designs, web elements, and more. I personally use it for web design and also some simple graphics like feature images on my website. You should definitely try Figma.
Canva
One of the most popular design resources is Canva. And it is very beginner-friendly. Canva manly is used to create feature images, thumbnails, and mages for social media.
And it is a great design tool for website owners. As you know images are very important for a website and with the help of Canva, you can create beautiful images.
Also, Canva has many templates for social media, marketing, education, and other types of images and designs. So it is a great way to start.
Fotor
Fotor is a great free tool for image editing. With it, you can create beautiful designs, images, collages, and more. It’s totally free to use and you can upgrade to a premium for more awesome features.
Fotor has three tools:
- Image Editing – You can easily create beautiful images. Crop, resize, and rotate images, add effects, text, elements, and more.
- Designer – Create custom designs for Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, or even logos. Change colors, add text, elements, custom images, etc.
- Collage Maker – Build professional collages. You are able to choose from classic, funky, artistic collage designs.
It’s one of the best tools for images. You can modify and beautify images, create beautiful collages, and also create great post images for Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and more.
Free Logo Design
Free Logo Design is what its name says. It is a free and simple tool to create logos. You don’t always need to pay for a logo. Because not everybody needs a professional logo.
This tool is a great way to create simple logos for blogs, websites, or even brands. So, if you are not a designer and want to save money, this tool will do the job for you.
Befunky
And the last tool on this list is Befunky, which is a very powerful tool that I use all the time. It has three tools built-in:
- Photo Editor
- Collage Maker
- Graphic Designer
With a photo editor, you can scale up and down images, resize, crop, rotate, etc. This is a great tool for images. I use it a lot. And it is totally free.
With a collage maker, you can create beautiful collages very easily. Comes with presets which can be modified. You can add patterns, graphics, spacing, colors, etc.
And the graphic designer is great for feature images or social media images. Presets include Instagram stories, Facebook covers, Youtube thumbnails, posters, brochures, and much more.
Conclusion
Design resources are very important for every website or blog owner, web, or graphic designer. They make our work much easier and faster. I use many of these tools for different purposes.
You have to have some tools in your toolbox when you have a website or if you are a designer. And a great thing is that many great tools are free to use and we don’t have to pay anything.
