Design Resources : Picfindr

This is a new free service that I heard about at the weekend. It's a search engine for free stock photography that you can use commercially. There are already several free free stock sites such as Image:After , MorgueFile and the great SXC.hu, but Picfindr should make it that little bit easier and quicker to find images.


As it mentions on the site, the service is neither "alpha" nor "beta", it's just not finished yet. I found it already works really well. I typed in a couple of terms and off it went searching on 4 different sites and coming back very quickly with thumbnail results.

As part of your search you can specify if you want to give credit for the image, not alter it in anyway or ask permission to use the image. Depending on your choices, the search engine will return different results. I know that I'll be using this service regularly.

Design Resources: Kuler

Kuler - From the Adobe Lab, this is a wonderful free application that lets you create colour themes and save them for your Creative Suite 2 applications. You can also share themes and save them on the site - you'll need an Adobe ID to this (that's free too, you just need to register).

So if you're a graphic designer, a web designer, a fashion designer, an interior designer or just someone who likes colours, this is a great site for ideas.

Design Resources: Lorem Ipsum

If you need some dummy copy (text) to slot into your designs while you are working on them, then use the classic Lorem Ipsum text that has been used by the printing and typesetting industry since the 1500s. Below you will find a "chunk" of Lorem Ipsum text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Although the text appears to be random latin gobbledegook, it is actually over 2000 years old and has its roots in a piece of literature from 45 BC - "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil).

OK, so that's all very interesting, but why is it helpful when designing?
Well, a person viewing a design or layout will be distracted by readable content and may miss out on elements of the design. Another reason for using 'lorem ipsum' is that it also has a fairly normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'This is dummy text, this is dummy text, this is dummy text" making it look like readable text.

So where do you get Lorem Ipsum text? Simply go to http://www.lipsum.com/feed/html.

Design Resources - Fonts

There are loads of free font sites on the web. These are a list of the ones I like best. I will of course, continue to add to this list as I find more.

DaFont - A great and very popular site. Loads of good quality free fonts to download in a wide range of categories.

1001 Fonts - There are probably about, ehm, 1001 fonts on this site give or take a
few. Again there is a wide range of categories from brandname fonts to Western style fonts.

Fonteria - A large archive of fonts by several designers. All free to use.

Identifont - This is a tool which helps you identify a font from a sample by answering some
questions. It also has a section where you can download a selection of free fonts.

Design Resources - Colour Blender Tool

A great online tool to help you if you are "colour picking" challenged is colorblender.com .

The tool works by letting you pick a base colour, it will then create a "blend" of 6 colours which match or work very well with your chosen base colour. It's really easy to create a colour scheme for your designs. For example if you're working on a website you can see instantly "good" colors for text, links, backgrounds and borders. You can set the colour mode to RGB for screen based colours and get a suggested Pantone colour. When you find the colour set you like you can save your blends for Photoshop or Illustrator. Super easy to use and very fast.

Design Resources - Textures & Backgrounds

This list includes all kinds of goodies that I find useful and I'm sure you'll find something you like here too. All of this stuff I would consider to be a little bit special and even better its free!

The Inspiration Gallery - Unique and original borders, backgrounds, wallpaper.
These are not just the "usual" hideous backgrounds and borders you can
find on the web. There are some very beautiful textures and images
here.

Briar Press - Cuts and Caps
- Fabulous ornamenents and inital capital letters. You can download these vintage images for your personal use in print, web, or even letterpress projects.

Image After - Stock Photographs of Textured Objects
- This a huge collection of photographs. You can download and use any image or texture from the site in your own work. Covers everything from architecture exteriors to household objects.

Squidfingers Patterns - Over 100 different repeating patterns.

Texture Library - More photographs of textures of everything from wood to fabrics to metals.

Background Patterns - Lots of interesting, yet subtle backgrounds for use on web sites.