Stock Images can be expensive, those of us in the non-profit sector, education, and rapidly-shrinking in house design departments are well aware.  Here are some sites that can give you the free images that you need to really make your designs pop!

Public Domain images and materials are ‘publicly available’ and not covered by intellectual property or copyrights. Today, graphic a design and digital media is abundant, so there is a high demand for images for use in print, web, and multimedia.

Here are are four public domain sites to pin and save. Enjoy:

http://publicdomainpictures.net

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://photos-public-domain.com

http://www.sxc.hu

Photoshop Magazine Mockup

When I originally put together my online portfolio and printed leave behind, I took several photographs of my samples so that my work would be well represented in both media. It was a mostly successful project. However, some of my conceptual pieces--ones that never went into production--had to be altered to fit stylistically. There were ways to get around this. I found an awesome Photoshop mockup that allowed me to share more of my work. I also created so ad hoc mock up scenarios that were also successful.

For conceptual posters, I photographed gallery walls and inserted appropriate sized design samples into frames or in a salon style hanging.

Poster Mockup II

Here are some other great mock up options to help get your portfolio a second glance:

• Photoshop -
  Photoshop Magazine Mockup (video tutorial)
  Business Cards Mockup (video tutorial)
  Poster Mockup
  Poster Mockup II
• Illustrator -
  Vector Macbook for web mockups
  3D Brochure (video tutorial)
  3D Packaging (tutorial)
• Mockups for Sale
  Graphic River Poster and Environmental Signage
  Graphic River Magazine Mockups

As a developer / designer in higher education, I've seen the climate shift toward electronic media. This means that presenting imagery of e-learning is increasingly important. I'm talking about showing engaged learners using computers, devices, and non-traditional media to get information. That said, this iPad round-up doesn't show engaged learners at all.

Instead here are some devices that you can use in your design work or portfolio. I have downloaded and worked with a few of these at different times in the past year:

Free Apple iPad Vector - this freebie was created by jameskoster,  is completely editable in Illustrator, and includes glass glare in the layers!! Plus I've used it in my new graphic design portfolio.

Vecteezy Vector iPad - created by yaquiloco

Deviantart 18 iPad Icons - created by Adidadidu

Deviantart angled iPad icon - created by chrisnoakes

I'm in Love. . . with this website!

Coming from a non-profit, graphic design background, I am well-versed in the economical online image search. Some time last year I found this site and have visited often when looking for the right hi-res photo for various projects.

Check out and bookmark Photos-Public-Domain!

For winter holiday / christmas/ new years / seasonal images go directly to Holidays and Seasons.

Sappi offers booklet/book samples for free to designers and students--they're samples!


Highly recommended:Folding and scoring book is a huge favorite!http://sappi.litorders.com/SelectInventoryList.aspx

Like you don't have enough to do, right?

I got a lovely surprise in the mail this week. A friend took some of my more memorable looks and created a paper doll of me as my birthday card.  Some folks are just so  industrious!! As this is an awesome (economical) idea for a present, I decided to copy it--the easy way!!

Vecteezy has some awesome guy and girl AI vector packs; they include hair, facial expressions, hand gestures, and clothes. This is convenient since I have six other friends having birthdays this month--of varying  gender, age, and ethnicity.

I just started working on one of the femme birthday cards, will update with pics when all are done!!!!

Are you designing a piece and don't have the time to idly run your ballpoint across some note paper for the right graphics?  Someone else has done it for you!

Spoon Graphics - Shape and Plant Doodles
Social Media Icon Doodles
X-mas Doodles

ARS Grafik - Hand drawn Vector Doodles 
HTC Sense - Vector Doodles

Vector Pack Duo - Mr. T Doodle +!!

These actually came in handy on one of last week's design projects. I hope you find them useful too.

 As any lover of type, I revere the look, feel, and technical aspects of letterpress typography. On a recent project, I scoured the internet for a handful of fonts that fit neatly into my design.

I ended up with several excellent options (see below) before getting reacquainted with the work of typographer, Billy Argel. He’s the awesome designer who created Panhead.



The Letterpress typeface, Body Hunter  has all of the characteristics I needed for the display type part of my project: the artifacts associated with movable type: the uneven inked appearance, and bold slab serifs and glyphs.

The font is free for personal use—so give it a try.

 The other great hand-inked, distressed fonts I found are also available on Dafont. They actually work well together.

• Uranium Mafia  
• Chicago House 
•  Dead Kansas  
• Andalusian  
• Silent Hell of Cheryl 

On a recent biz card project, I got to revisit DaFont.com in search of dingbats.  I needed old skool 80s graphics, and I found what I was looking for—and then some:

CKas- Retro cassette tape dingbats by junkohanhero

Beatbox- Ghetto blaster dingbats by Mathew Taft
DeeJay Supreme – Early 21st century rave style simplified dingbats by Fontalicious

Communications Station is in the middle of a newsletter redesign. My advice is always 'work smarter, not harder'. There are templates that can be modified by--or at least--give inspiration to, the harried graphic designer. Now, if I can follow that advice, myself, I'm golden.

A few years back, around the height of CS3 or so, I went searching for a newsletter template for a writing class with Arthur Magida. I stumbled upon the Adobe Exchange. From time to time I still flip through the pages there. I'v e found tutorials, templates, graphics and outlines that have proved helpful in the past.

Check out "Browse  by Category" in the sidebar.

In my Gmail box this morning is the latest monthly Envato Newsletter.



While in Grad School, I visited the ThemeForest site to browse through their templates for inspiration. Eventually, I bought one of their excellent, professional templates, and continued paging through their site. The following month I got their newsletter. It was okay, they hyped themselves and offered items for sale--you know, the usual stuff. When I got to the bottom of the page, I saw it. This Month's Freebies. I clicked the link and my eyes goggled. Their monthly freebies aren't throw away items either, they're high quality digital art: professional game graphics, in-depth design tutorials, multi-page Websites, studio quality audio productions, and sexy-futuristic motion graphics!

I've gotten used to high quality products from Envato. However, the February downloads have far surpassed my expectations.

 The Web template, Xero Portfolio, is sexy, Java-y, Lightbox-y, and full of options. I'm so Happy!

A fellow designer called me for advice on a logo project that he’s in the midst of tackling. The event is a film series on women’s health or some such. One solution that he’s fond of involves using a film strip--either as part of the logo or on the fact sheets.
Okay buddy, here’s a bunch of free vector film strips that can be manipulated to suit the project.

The site All-Silhouettes offers thousands of free vectors for private and commercial use, Bookmark it!

JQuery is functional and fun to look at but—by god—it’s a ton of coding. A metric ton if you’re a graphic designer not well versed in the development side of JavaScript.
Thankfully, others saw the demand and have come to your rescue. Here is a Creative Commons solution to get your lightbox portfolio up and running:

prettyPhoto Lightbox Clone

To see this professionally executed JQuery clone in action,  view the PORTFOLIO page of the Robust Web template.

Undergrad taught me two things:  never stop learning, and design freebies are out there if you simply look for them. Lynda.com isn't exactly a freebie, but it is a great inexpensive resource that will help you learn everything about the software tools in you Graphic Design Toolkit. In my junior and senior years I regularly purchased month-long memberships to this online learning community and took advantage of the tutorials.

If paying the monthly fee is out of the question, consider signing up for the Lynda newsletter. It regularly showcases new tutorials and recordings, tips and tricks, AND even some free tutorials/courses.

Get on over there and start learning! www.Blog.Lynda.com