OWJones

Are You Ready For Some Clip Art? (Links to Free Clip Art)

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I keep seeing posts from people looking for fairly standard clip art items, and so rather than keep replying with the same answers over and over, I thought I'd start a thread of links to all the most popular free vector clip art sites.

 

First, some basic information about clip art.  There are two kinds of free when it comes to artwork: the first being free in the sense that it doesn't cost anything.  The second type of free is "royalty free" which means that you are free to use the art without having to pay a licensing fee each time you use it - it does not (necessarily) mean that the art is free for the taking and may very well cost you money to add it to your collection.  Items placed in the Public Domain are considered royalty-free, although the terms are not interchangable.

 

Unless it is marked specifically as Public Domain, every piece of art you will find is copyrighted to some extent - by default everything that is created in this country is automatically granted copyright status.  For the most part that means you can't slap your name on it and claim that you designed it.  In many cases it also means you can't legally use that art in your designs.  Most websites make it clear what the copyright license, if there is one, will allow.  It is your responsibility to confirm that any art you use is not violating someone else's copyright or trademark.  This forum post demonstrates what can happen when you violate someone's intellectual property.

 

It is possible to obtain licensing approval to create some copyrighted designs - however, the cost to do so is usually prohibitively expensive for all but the biggest businesses.  If you send a letter/email asking permission and you do not get a response, do not take that as permission to proceed!  You need it - in writing - to C.Y.A. when the lawyers crawl out of the wood work.  It doesn't matter if everyone on ebay is making them.  It doesn't matter if the guys/gals at the flea market are making them.  It is illegal and if you are caught it will cost you more than you want to think about.

 

Also, when you buy clip art, you are not necessarily obtaining a license to use the designs that you just paid for!  There are many vendors selling copyrighted logos that are illegal for you to cut and sell.  Let me say that again - "Just because you paid for it, doesn't make it legal!".

 

Why do they include them?  Well, theoretically if the local Ford dealership comes to you for a banner and they have the right paperwork, then you can use a Ford logo in their banner/sign and you'll be OK. It is still your responsibility to make sure that the dealership has the right paper work to prove they are authorized to ask you to cut a Ford logo.

 

One last note - I use Chrome as my web browser and have ad-blockers enabled and various malware defense software running - I can not vouch for the safety of these websites or the ads running on them.  It is your responsibility to use caution when visiting new websites!

 

Please feel free to add your favorite links and a description of what people can expect to find there...

 

http://all-silhouettes.com -- Great source for easy to cut vectors.  Everything is sorted by category and are bunched together with several pieces of art on each downloadable page.  Most art is available as Adobe Illustrator v8, Adobe Photoshop custom shapes, EPS v10 and SVG files.  This is my #1 go-to site for basic vector art.

 

http://artshare.ru -- In Russian, but a collection of vector and raster art, most pulled from other free sites.  Formats vary but you can usually find something in a format you can use.

 

http://dezignus.com/category/vector/ -- Similar to ArtShare, but in English.  Mostly free clip art pulled from other sites.  Formats vary but you can usually find something in a format you can use.

 

http://downloadfreevector.com -- Similar to ArtShare, but in English.  Mostly free clip art pulled from other sites.  Formats vary but you can usually find something in a format you can use.

 

http://clipart.edigg.com -- Another source for free clip art - I use it primarily for the pets categories when I need a specfic breed of dog or cat for a design.

 

http://digital-clipart.com/text/links_catalogs_samples.htm -- A source to buy clip art that also offers free samples of some of their designs.

 

http://www.freelogovector.com -- A variety of small, simple vector designs.

 

http://www.freevector.com -- Another large selection of multi-color clip art in vector format.  File types are usually Adobe Illustrator and PDF.

 

http://all-free-download.com/free-vector/ -- A broad selection fo multi-coloro vector art.  Includes a lot of vector backgrounds and other large designs.  Most files are in EPS format.

 

http://vectorstuff.blogspot.com/?m=1 -- An eclectic collection of some free vector art.

 

http://www.vectoropenstock.com/home-vectors -- Has a nice selection of multi-color vectors, not all of which are cutter friendly, but lots of pretty art.

 

http://www.vectorss.com -- Even more free vector art!

 

http://www.clker.com -- The online royalty-free public domain clip art site - has a raster to vector conversion feature - upload a raster image and it will be automatically converted to a vector.

 

http://tshirtclipart.com/?page_id=15 -- A site with clip art for sale, and a small free section to let you sample their work.

 

http://www.vectors1.com -- Vector net has a large selection of mutli-color and mono-color vector art, some of which is free.

 

http://vectorlady.com -- Another site that collects links to free vector clipart from around the world.

 

http://wpclipart.com/index.html -- A site full of kid safe, copyright free clipart

 

http://openclipart.org -- A site full of public domain (royalty-free) clip art

 

http://www.freedesign4.me/category/vectors/ -- A lot of the art on here is backgrounds and 3D shapes that aren't cutter friendly, but you will find some designs you can use.

 

http://boxtemplatesstore.com/ --  A site I just bookmarked - it provides vector templates you can cut and fold into a wide variety of box shapes and sizes.  Could be used to cut wraps for boxes, or use your pen to draw a box template onto coroplast, cardstock, etc. and cut out to make custom boxes.  Not truly clipart, but could still be useful...

 

http://www.clipartandfonts.com/Free_Clipart.html -- This is the home site for the "World's Largest Vector Clip Art Mega Vault" collections for sale on the big auction site.  They have several free clip art sample packs available for download to show you what their art work is like.  Their collections do contain several copyrighted designs that you can't legally cut (Calvin, No Fear logos, band logos, Playboy logo, etc.).  Don't buy from their website, instead buy from their auctions - I got their "$999" package for under $150 through one of their auctions on ebay.  Their "Swap Meet" collections contain all of the popular designs you see for sale at flea markets, but also contain a higher percentage of unlicensed, copyrighted designs.

 

http://www.brandsoftheworld.com -- This site is chock full of copyrighted and trademarked business and product logos.  Unless you have permission from the owner(s) of the respective copyright and/or trademark owners, there is almost nothing here that you can legally cut.  However, there are frequent requests for logos of this nature and that is the only reason I include it here.

 

Edit - Made a grammatical correction and fixed a URL

Edited by OWJones
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Great work, thanks a ton.

 

But just as a word of warning you still have to be careful with some of these. Especially the sites like Clker where users upload the photos. Some of that stuff is still copywrited you just have to use your head and do some research on what you download and use.

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Nice.

you would think with all the free graphics to be had, Why so many want copywrite stuff.

 

mark-s

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Good resources.

 

Be aware that not all vector graphics or clipart files are cuttable.

This is the single most misunderstood element of our business.

 

 

 

toy-engine.png

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Excellent sources, thanks for taking the time to put that together!   :thumbsup:

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Thank you, great reference!  Copy Pasted it for now til I have time to bookmark them :thumbsup:

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Thanks for taking the time to put that together!  Am going to print the list for quick reference and post it on my work board! 

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OW....  Nice post and Thanks for your efforts

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awesome.. thanks for putting that together.. I also grabbed the Worlds Largest Vector collection from the big auction site a while ago.. paid a bit more for it than you did though :-[.. was worth the money and already paid for itself... book marked a couple of those sites too..

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