Website graphics resources

Patterns, photos, gradients, brushes, and more

There are many generous people out on the internet who like to show off their work and allow other people to build on things they've produced. It is important to carefully read the terms of use that are provided with any person's work. Many people are glad to have you use their source material provide it isn't for commercial work. Some really want attribution on your website if you use their source material. No-one wants you to take their work and say it's yours, or resell it as is for profit, but there are many generous folks who will let you use their work even in commerical ventures. If you have any question about how you're using tools from the internet, contact the owner and ask them how they feel about. Below are some of my favorite sites for finding interesting and helpful tools for producing web graphics.

Brushes, textures, patterns, & fonts

If you've never played with brushes in Photoshop, Painter, or the Gimp you're in for a treat. Brushes can add texture or graphical elements at any size and can take a plain uninteresting web site that next step into eye-catching.

1. http://fbrushes.com - A large source of brushes, textures and patterns collected from a variety of sources.
2. http://webtreats.mysitemyway.com - Textures, brushes, icons, and many other resources. Free items available for commercial as well as personal use. Other items for sale.
3. http://www.obsidiandawn.com/ - Excellent and original brushes and tutorials on graphic design. Her work is available for free for personal use, and there is a small fee for commercial use.
4. http://www.cuttyfruty.com/enhtml/brushes.php - Interesting hand-written fonts by Jellyka Nerevan. Free for non-commercial use, small donation for commericial use.

Advice on building a site

1. http://www.smashingmagazine.com - Advice on design, CSS, Photoshop & Dreamweaver tutorials, and lots more.
2. http://webdevelopersjournal.com - Javascript, Ecommerce, Web tools, this is a great ezine for all levels of web developers.

Clipart

1. http://www.clker.com/ - A huge collection of royalty free clipart.

Font Information

This is an example of font families available in most browsers.

Stock Photography

1. http://pdphoto.org - A collection of interesting and useful photography from Jon Sullivan. Almost all work is in the public domain, free for commercial or personal use, but check any photos you choose. There are a few with non-commercial requirements.
2. http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/ - Another excellent source of public domain work. Please note that no release forms were signed by models in the pictures.

Inspiration

One of the most interesting places on the Internet for emerging art trends is http://www.deviantart.com/, an online community of artists.