Where to get free elements to help create your design

Are you creating a design? Or struggling for ideas or need a detailed element that you can't make yourself?

Here's a list of free or cheap sources of vector & bitmap artwork, icons & images you can use for creating your sticker.

If you're unsure what the terms vector or bitmap mean, scroll to the bottom of this article.

Where to find vector & bitmap artwork

• Vecteezy - Loads of excellent free content (which is actually good) and for about £10/month, you can access thousands of excellent premium content. 
• VectorStock - About 0.5 million free vectors available for download and another 20+ million paid vectors.

Great resources for icons

• flaticon - Thousands of genuinely good icons for free or for about £8/month you get access for about 3.5 million icons
• ICONS8 - Lots of great icons and they have photos, vectors and more. To gain full access, it's about £25/month, but there are thousands of free designs you can use.

 

Where to get great fonts

1. dafont - Access to loads of fonts. An incredible selection is available.
2. 1001 Free Fonts - Incredible fonts for free download. For about £16 you can immediately download 10,000 fonts.
3. Google Fonts - Over 1000 free fonts that can be used commercially (but not resold). If you want free & unrestricted, this is an incredible resource. 

The best place to get photos

1. Burst by Shopify - These photos are free to use commercially so great for brands who want to use their stickers in marketing. 
2. Unsplash - a massive resource of free images, just don't resell them as your own. 

What is Vector artwork?

Vector artwork is made up of mathematical formulas rather than colourised pixels. A designer creates Vector art with software such as CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator or many others.

What is bitmap artwork?

Tiny squares that vary in colour, called pixels, are put together to produce a seamless image. Bitmap images create art such as; photographs & scans. When scaling bitmap images, you need to be careful the pixels don't get too large that the picture becomes 'blurry'.