The Cheapskate’s Ultimate Collection of Free Creative Resources
Years of sifting through both useful and less-than-helpful resources distilled into a simple, handy list.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. It’s not intended to be. Because that would be exhausting. Rather, it’s meant to be a quick-reference guide and launchpad for new projects. Do note that the free option isn’t always the best option. But more often than not it’ll be totally sufficient.
Photos
Unsplash — My favorite stock photos site. Here you’ll find thousands of free, high-quality photos you can use in your work. And while Unsplash may not be the most comprehensive site of its type, it consistently produces the highest quality work.
Pixabay — A close second to Unsplash, Pixabay is where I go when I am looking for something specific, like pictures of a dental office or a filing cabinet.
The Stocks — An aggregate of all of the best free design resources. Here you’ll find free stock photos (Unsplash and Pixabay included), stock videos, mockups, color inspiration, icons, and fonts. I could have just listed this site and called it good, but there are plenty of less useful sites contained within The Stocks. I also prefer the visual purity of visiting websites directly.
Colors
Coolors — Because searching for colors is a visual endeavor. Press spacebar until you find a combination you like.
Blend — A great way to test out color gradients.
Brand Colors — Ever been curious about popular brands’ color palettes?
Icons
Material Design Icons — Tons of free material design icons.
Flat Icons — Tons of collections of free icons, grouped together into similar style packs. Word of warning — most of the packs are relatively small. Be sure you know what’s in the pack before starting a design, otherwise you may find yourself stuck later on without the proper icons.
Inspiration
Collect UI — Huge collection of designs to get inspired by. You can search by screen (e.g. 404 page, shopping cart, and testimonials), or just browse the thousands of designs on Collect UI.
Typ.io — Font design inspiration. My favorite format for both font and color inspiration is to see it in action on a website. Typ.io delivers.
Typography
Google Fonts — My favorite place to go for fonts because you get the full version of each font. Many other font sites will only give you one or two weights as a preview. What you see is what you get on Google Fonts.
Fount — A tool that lets you identify the fonts used on any website.
8 Tips To Create Outstanding Font Pairs — An infographic teaching you how to pair fonts.
Freebies
Sketch app sources — Sketch is my design tool of choice and Sketch App Sources is my go-to website for freebies.
Smart Mockups — Great for quickly creating product mockups without Photoshop.
Dribbble Curated Mockups — A bunch of mockup freebies on Dribbble curated by Ahmet Sülek.
Google it — You’ll find plenty of great freebies all over the internet. Simply Google specifically what you want (e.g. iOS 10 UI Kit for Adobe Photoshop) and you’ll likely find it within the top search results.
Have any free sources you love that I didn’t mention? Comment below!
