Whether you’re a graphic designer or a business owner who is “on the hook” for producing your own designs and graphics, you’ve probably felt the burden of trying to find high quality, royalty free content at one time or another.
In this article, we’re going to walk through some of our absolute favorite royalty free resources for photos and graphics.
Unsplash
You’ve probably heard of Unsplash. It has been growing as one of the internet’s most used and loved sources for royalty free photos. Users can use the search bar to search keywords and find hundreds of photos that can be used for websites, printed marketing materials, and anything else you’d want to use them for. Every photo found on Unsplash is 100% royalty free and can be used for anything. This is a great resource for any business or organization who just hasn’t had time to schedule a custom photoshoot but wants to have beautiful, photographer-level photos on their website.
Pexels
https://www.pexels.com
When we aren’t using Unsplash, we’re using Pexels. Pexels isn’t quite as popular or as well-known as Unsplash, but in our opinion, they have equally impressive content. However, one feature that Pexels offers that Unsplash doesn’t, is royalty free VIDEOS. That’s right, Pexels has a wide variety of royalty free videos that anyone can download and use for any purpose that they may need them for. However, if Pexels doesn’t have the b-roll footage you’re looking for, you can also look into a membership with StoryBlocks. StoryBlocks isn’t free, but in our opinion, it’s well worth the money. They have one of the most robust collections of royalty free stock video on the internet.
Freepik
Freepik is perhaps the most impressive resource on this list… if you’re looking for royalty free graphics. Freepik does offer a selection of royalty free photos, but not nearly the selection that you’ll find on either Unsplash or Pexels. However, where Freepik really shines is their selection of royalty free graphics. You can find logo templates, vector icons, illustrations, and more. For business owners, church leaders, or graphic designers who are on a time crunch and don’t have time to illustrate a series of icons or logos from scratch, Freepik has several tools and resources that can help. They do offer a premium subscription for serious designers who are looking for even more resource options, but their free membership is also surprisingly helpful.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The following honorable mentions aren’t free, but are worth looking into if you’re serious about finding high quality photos, videos, templates, fonts, and graphic design elements.
Envato Elements
Envato Elements subscriptions start at around $16.50/mo, which is a great deal for the amount of downloadable content they offer. This resource is chalk full of templates, illustrations, mockups, and more. If you’re someone who is serious about graphic design or marketing, I’d definitely recommend checking this resource out.
StoryBlocks
We referred to StoryBlocks earlier in this post, and we aren’t’ ashamed to do it again! You can get unlimited video downloads for $20/month with StoryBlocks. Again, this is one of the largest vaults of royalty free videos on the internet today and in our opinion, the site that offers the highest quality videos. Several sites offer royalty free video, but not all of them have cinematic, high quality clips like StoryBlocks.
PlaceIt
PlaceIt has become our favorite place to find high quality mockups for our design works. You can start a subscription with PlaceIt for only $14.95/mo, a small price to pay for all the wonderful content you’ll earn access to. PlaceIt is a great resource for designers who are wanting to mockup their design drafts for their customers, as well as full business owners who are wanting to mockup their products to sell on their website. If you fall into either of those two categories, I’d recommend checking them out!
We hope this article was helpful! If it was, please consider sharing it with others who may benefit from it!
