Free Clip Art For Your Blog
A picture is worth a thousand words. It’s a cliché but it’s also true, which means including images can be a good way to dress up your posts. If you’re like me, though, you hate to look for clip art. I love looking at the images, but I’ve experienced that most free clip art sites are torture to navigate. A clip art hunting session usually involves wading through endless sites that have little art and plenty of ads. This more often than not exhausts me before I even find what I need.
But for you, dear reader, I braved clip art hell to find the best free clip art for your blog. The result is the list below, which contains sites that not only have quality free images but also are easy to navigate (with one exception, noted below). I’ve also included several sites that charge a nominal amount for clip art, in case you can’t find what you need at the free sites.
FREE SOURCES
New! Summer Clip Art
These contemporary clip art images were created with Picnik and are great for invoking the feeling of summer for party invitations, scrap-booking, Web sites/blogs and more.
This resource is close to my heart because it’s WordPlay’s sister blog. I created it because I had such a hard time finding free vintage images online and assumed others were having the same problem. So I bought my own collection of antique postcards and photos and am in the process of posting them. If you’re looking for authentic antique art, you’ll like this collection.
Barry’s specializes in colorful illustrations that cover a wide variety of topics. Because most of the images are in the same style, they look compatible if you use more than one on a page. To expedite your search through the large collection, click on the Clip art button whenever you’d like to return to the topics page.
Dover produces high-end clip art, which is available in over 120 books and a few CDs. Fortunately for us, they also offer free samples, which are sent in a link every Wednesday by e-mail. If you’re looking for classy images, Dover is a good place to start.
Click here to receive Dover’s weekly samples.
If you want images from a simpler time, Old Time Clip Art offers images from the 1800s to 1928. The Old Time Clip Art CD, which is a bargain at $10.90 for U.S. customers and $11.99 for customers outside the U.S., contains more than 1,600 images. Only 128 of them are available online, but each one is a high-quality black and white original.
This site doesn’t have a giant inventory, but what they have is good. You do have to provide a link to them in return for using their images though. (Read their clipart usage rights for details.) Their art comes in two formats: .wmf and .gif (.wmf format for printing and .gif for blogs, Web sites, e-mail newsletters, etc.).
Karen’s Whimsy Public Domain Images
Karen has compiled hundreds of black-and-white and color images from old books, magazines and postcards printed before 1923. All the images are in the public domain and free to use. Karen just asks that you don’t resell them or use them as part of templates, etc.
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This site has an uneven mix of image types and drawing quality, but many of the images are worth using. This wouldn’t be my first choice because there are so many ads and the navigation is clunky, but if you can’t find images elsewhere, give this site a try.
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PAID SOURCES
Although we all like getting things free when we can, sometimes you have to pay to get what you want. The following sources provide quality images, yet aren’t too expensive.
At 6.2 million images and counting, iCLIPART has an amazing collection. Their art is of uniform high quality, which is unusual among clip art sites. For the subscription fee (one year is by far the best deal), you also can access photos, fonts, sounds and Web graphics. This site would be particularly useful for people who want all their images to have the same “vibe,” because although there are some variations, most of the clip art is in the same style.
This is the least expensive paid site on the list. All they requires is a one-time charge of $9.99, which includes unlimited downloads for life. The site is small now but they add new clip art every week, so it should get bigger in a hurry. Also, members can request specific clip art if they don’t find what they’re looking for. It’s a great opportunity to get custom clip art for an affordable price.
RetroArt is great for when you want a retro look and nothing else will do. There’s no neo-retro art on this site; all the images were originally created in the 40’s and 50’s. The drawings are priced individually and range from $4.95 to $14.95, and quantity discounts are available.
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Clipart.com has over seven million downloadable images (including photos), most of which are of good quality. There are some clunkers, but you can usually find a decent image to illustrate just about any topic. You can download as many images as you want once you’ve paid one of the subscription fees, which start at $14.95 for one week. The site allows you to search for images without paying, so you can find what you’re looking for before you spend any money.
This site is so affordable, it’s almost free. For only $9.95 a month, you get unlimited access to one million clip art images, animations, Web graphics, photos and fonts. They also have a $59.95 plan, which gives you a full year of downloads.___________
If you want access to an assortment of quality animations, Animation Factory offers them at a reasonable price. For only $59.95 a year, you can download as many of their 400,000 animated elements as you want.
You might also be interested in these other resources on WordPlay:
- Free photos
- Free cartoons
- Avatar Central, your home for free images, image software and information about avatars
Copyright 2007 WordPlayBlog.com
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November 25th, 2007 at 12:45 am
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptIt’sa cliche but it’s also true, which means including images can be a good way to dress up your posts. If you’re like me, though, you hate to look for clip art. I love looking at the images, but I’ve experienced that most free clip art … [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Hi!
You can use my photos for free at http://freeartisticphotos.com - all of them are taken by me and made Public Domain ; hope you enjoy them!
Cheers, Husac!
I hope that you found it interesting!