The Down Low on Free Downloads
In working in any design software, you can greatly improve your end result with little difficulty by taking advantage of royalty free, downloadable images and fonts.
First, it is of the utmost importance to be sure that the free downloads you find are legal. Never pull images or fonts off sites without ensuring you have the right to use said images.
There are some sites that provide high quality downloadable photos and vector graphics for a nominal fee. You can save yourself a lot of time and work by integrating graphics already in existence into your design. Be sure to incorporate any graphics and make them your own so that they do not look like stock photography or clip art. Nothing cheapens a layout or design more than images that look fake and generic.
Photos and vector illustrations are only the beginning. You can also download pattern swatches for Photoshop and Illustrator. Pattern swatches are “fill colors” with a seamless pattern/design that can be manipulated inside a shape in Illustrator or Photoshop. Let’s say, for example, that you want to add a plaid design to your background. Rather than having to draw all of the overlapping lines, you can apply a pattern to a shape in your background. These patterns can be used in countless ways that can really add to any design.
Unique and innovative fonts can also push your design to the next level without too much difficulty. Stay away from fonts that are hard to read or are incomplete. For example, a font that is too “scripty” is probably too difficult to read when applied to large amounts of text. Some free fonts come with a complete alphabet but no numbers or punctuation. Other fonts are only all caps or all lowercase versions. Before you download, be sure that the font doesn’t lack any characters you will need.
Have fun and be creative!
Here are some sites to start your search:
istockphoto.com
1001fonts.com
abstractfonts.com
