Free graphic design resources are fonts, photos, icons, mock-ups and tools that cost nothing to obtain, but “free” never means “no rules”. The licence attached to each file decides what a designer may do with it.
This guide explains the main licence types, then walks through each resource category with links to deeper guides on this independent site, which hosts no downloads of its own.
Free does not mean unrestricted
Three different ideas hide behind the word “free”. A resource can be free of charge but still restricted, as with a font that is licensed for personal projects only. It can be free to use but require credit, as with Creative Commons attribution licences. Or it can be free of copyright restrictions altogether, as with works dedicated to the public domain. Mixing these up is the most common reason a project ends up with an unusable asset late in production.
Four licences cover a large share of what designers meet in open collections, and each states its terms in plain language:
- CC0 is a public domain dedication. The Creative Commons deed says the person who associated a work with it has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, to the extent allowed by law.
- CC BY allows sharing and adapting for any purpose, even commercially, provided the user gives appropriate credit, links to the licence and indicates if changes were made.
- The SIL Open Font License allows fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves.
- The MIT licence is common for icon sets and code, and grants permission to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense and sell copies, subject to keeping the copyright and permission notice.
| Licence | What it permits | Main condition |
|---|---|---|
| CC0 1.0 Universal | Copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission | None required by the licence; no warranties are given |
| Attribution 4.0 International | Share and adapt for any purpose, even commercially | Give appropriate credit, link to the licence, indicate changes |
| SIL Open Font License | Use, study, copy, embed, modify, redistribute and sell modified and unmodified copies of a font | The font may not be sold by itself; modified versions may not use a reserved font name |
| MIT | Use, copy, modify, publish, distribute and sell copies of the software | Keep the copyright and permission notice in all copies |
The terms in the table are taken from the Creative Commons CC0 deed and the CC BY deed, the SIL licence text and the MIT licence file linked later in this guide.
Always read the licence on the page where the asset is offered. A collection can mix licences from file to file, and the terms of the specific file in front of you are the terms that apply.
Fonts: the Open Font Licence in practice
Type is the area where licence mistakes are costly, because a font ends up on every page of a site. The full licence text on the SIL Open Font License page grants permission, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of the font software to use, study, copy, merge, embed, modify, redistribute, and sell modified and unmodified copies, subject to conditions. Those conditions are short: the font may not be sold by itself, copies must carry the copyright notice and licence, and no modified version may use a reserved font name without written permission.
The licence also draws a useful line around the things you make. Its preamble states that the requirement for fonts to remain under the licence does not apply to any document created using the fonts or their derivatives, which means a poster, logo file or web page set in an open font does not itself become open-licensed.
The frequently asked questions from the licence authors explain the “not sold by itself” rule: the intent is to keep people from making money by simply redistributing the fonts. Bundling is allowed, though. They answer yes to the question of selling a software package that includes the fonts. Web designers who want a practical shortlist, loading advice and licence checks per family will find them in the guide to free fonts for websites.
Photographs and illustrations
Photography licences vary more than font licences do, because every provider writes its own terms. Some collections use a custom licence, some rely on CC0 dedications, and some mix both. The Wikimedia Commons guidance on reuse makes the general principle clear: content in the public domain may not have a strict legal requirement of attribution, depending on the jurisdiction of content reuse, but attribution is recommended to give correct provenance.
The same page adds a warning that applies everywhere. It says that, while the copyright and licensing information supplied for each image is believed to be accurate, the Wikimedia Foundation does not provide any warranty regarding the copyright status or correctness of licensing terms, and that anyone reusing files should verify the copyright status of each image. The sensible habit follows directly from that: store the source URL, the licence name and the licence link alongside every image used in a project, so credit and proof of terms are available later.
Photos of identifiable people, buildings and branded objects can raise issues that a copyright licence does not cover. A CC0 dedication, for instance, does not touch the other rights a person may hold. The deed states that in no way are the patent or trademark rights of any person affected by CC0, nor are the rights that other persons may have in the work or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. The guide to free stock photos covers what CC0 and site licences allow in more detail.
Credit lines are easiest to write when the information is collected at download time. A complete credit normally names the title of the work, its creator, the source link and the licence, and the CC BY deed’s wording is a good model: credit should be given in any reasonable manner, without suggesting that the licensor endorses you or your use. On a web page that usually means a short line under the image or on a credits page linked from the footer, and the same line can double as the caption.
Edits deserve a mention in the credit as well. If a photo has been cropped, recoloured or combined with other material, CC BY asks users to indicate if changes were made, and a short note such as “cropped and colour-adjusted” satisfies the spirit of that requirement without cluttering the layout. Share-alike licences go further and require the adapted work to carry the same terms, which is rarely suitable for a client’s brand photography.
Icons and interface graphics
Icon sets are usually published on code-hosting sites under software licences, which suits web work because icons are shipped as code. The Feather icon set carries the MIT licence, whose text grants permission to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the software, provided the copyright notice and permission notice are included in all copies. Google’s Material icon repository records a licence change to Apache 2.0 in its change history.
Two practical rules apply whichever set is chosen. First, keep the licence file in the project when icons are bundled, since MIT and similar licences require the notice to travel with the files. Second, never assume a set that contains brand logos covers those logos: the Material README notes that Google does not include third-party logos among its icons due to legal reasons, which shows how brand marks are handled differently from generic symbols. A comparison of popular libraries and their terms is in the guide to free icon sets.
Mock-ups, layers and templates
Designers have long relied on shared layered files to present work. PSD mock-ups let a design be dropped into a device frame or a browser window so that clients see it in context, and the way the file is built decides how quickly that can happen. The guide to psd mockups explains how smart objects make that swap fast, while the guide to photoshop layers covers naming, grouping and exporting layers so a layout can be handed over cleanly.
Templates sit between design files and finished sites. Choosing one involves more than appearance: the structure, the code quality and the licence all affect how far it can be adapted. Those questions are covered in the companion hub on web design templates, and the code behind a template is explained in the hub on front-end web development.
Mock-up files raise two licence points. Check whether the file permits commercial client work, and whether presentation images that include the mock-up frame may be shared publicly. This site offers no mock-up files for download, so those terms must always come from the original publisher.
Colour, copy and reading
Not every useful resource is a file. A color palette generator turns a single starting colour into a set of harmonious options, and the guide to the tools explains how the results should still be checked for readable contrast before they reach a live page.
Placeholder copy is another long-standing resource. The standard filler text descends from a classical Latin work, and the guide to lorem ipsum covers its history, its limits and what to use instead. Filler is scaffolding only, and it should be replaced with real copy before launch.
Learning material belongs on the list too. Some of the best references are openly licensed: Web Style Guide, for example, states that it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License on its own site. The NonCommercial and ShareAlike parts mean the text cannot be reused in commercial work, and adaptations must carry the same licence. Printed titles that remain worth buying are collected in the guide to web design books.
A licence checklist and asset log
A short routine prevents nearly every licensing problem. Run through it for each asset, in this order:
- Open the licence on the page the file came from and note its name and version.
- Confirm that commercial use is allowed if the project is for a business or a client.
- Check whether credit is required and, if so, what form it should take.
- Check whether changes are allowed, such as recolouring an icon or cropping a photo.
- Look for exclusions, such as logos, people or reserved font names.
- Record the source URL, licence and date in a project asset log.
- Keep a copy of the licence text with the delivered files when the licence demands it.
The asset log is the most useful item on that list. Months later, when a client asks where a particular image came from, the log answers in seconds, while a missing record can force a replacement of the image on a live page.
A good order of work keeps licensing simple. Start with type, because the font choice shapes everything else and is the hardest asset to swap late. Next settle the colour palette, then the icon set, and only then source photography, since photos are the easiest items to replace if a licence problem appears. Placeholder text and rough layouts can come first of all, because they carry no licence risk beyond the placeholder text itself.
Teams that work together should agree on a short list of approved sources and share it. A shared list prevents the situation where one designer pulls an image from a collection with strict terms and another assumes it is public domain. It also makes handovers easier: a developer who inherits a project can see at once which assets are open-licensed and which were bought, and can rebuild the credits page from the log without asking anyone.
Open resources are a starting point rather than a ceiling. A paid licence is sometimes the simpler route, for example when a client needs exclusivity, a particular typeface family or written assurance about commercial use. The guides linked above describe the free options in depth so that the decision between free and paid can be made on facts instead of habit.
Common mistakes are worth naming, because they repeat from project to project:
- Trusting a search result. Image search pages and aggregator sites often show a licence label that was copied from somewhere else; the original page is the only reliable record.
- Ignoring the version. A licence can have several versions with slightly different wording, so note which one applied when the asset was downloaded.
- Treating logos as icons. Brand marks are governed by trademark rules that icon licences do not override.
- Forgetting the files that ship. Fonts and icons that are bundled into a theme or a plugin travel with every copy, and so do their notices.
- Assuming a fix is free. Recolouring or editing an asset can trigger share-alike or reserved-name conditions that the unedited file did not.
When in doubt, choose a different asset. The open ecosystem is large enough that a clearly licensed alternative almost always exists, and swapping early costs far less than a takedown request after launch.
Designers who work regularly benefit from a small, well-organised library rather than a bookmarks folder crowded with unsorted links. Group saved resources by type, such as fonts, icons, photographs and templates, and store the licence name next to each entry so reuse decisions take seconds. Prefer sources that publish their licence text in full, since a clear licence is a sign that the collection is run carefully.
It also helps to separate resources by project risk. Assets with simple, permissive terms, such as CC0 images or open-font families, can be used freely in client work. Assets that require credit or carry share-alike conditions deserve a note in the project brief, so that nobody on the team removes the credit line during a late layout change. Review the library from time to time, because a provider can change its terms and a link that was permissive last year may not be today.
The independent status of this site matters here too. It is not affiliated with any font foundry, icon publisher, stock photo provider, software company or standards body, and it does not speak for any of them. Where it quotes a licence, the quotation points to the page of the party that wrote it, and that page remains the authority.
Frequently asked questions
Can free fonts be used on client websites?
Fonts under the SIL Open Font License can be used, embedded and redistributed, as long as the font is not sold by itself. Fonts offered as free for personal use only are a different case and need a separate commercial licence.
Do I have to credit the creator of a CC0 image?
The CC0 deed states that the work can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission. Giving credit is still good practice and makes the image easier to trace later.
What does attribution actually require under the attribution licence?
The deed says to give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence and indicate if changes were made, in any reasonable manner but not in a way that suggests the licensor endorses you.
Does this site offer downloads of the resources it describes?
No. The site hosts no fonts, photos, icons or mock-up files. Each guide points to the provider whose licence page is the authority for that resource.
Is this site connected to any resource provider?
No. It is an independent informational site with no affiliation to any of the providers, publishers or organisations mentioned.
