Need help with a new project? There are so many useful free resources for designers to help you succeed. Below are a handful of well-known, and not-so-well-known tools that designers use daily. Bookmark this post so you can keep this helpful list – we regularly update it with our new finds so make sure you check back for the newest, tried-and-tested, free design resources.
We’re not sponsored by any of these companies, we just think they’re great!
Design Seeds
Getting the perfect colour combination can be a pain. If you’re stuck, this is a great site to visit. Design Seeds share interesting and unique colour palettes to show you new colour combinations that you might not have thought of. It shows you interesting combinations in a life setting so you can see how they work together. There’s also a daily email roundup of inspiring colour palettes to help you get creative.
They also help budding photographers by sharing images submitted via their Instagram. Check out #SeedsColor on Instagram and send in your own a chance to be featured on their website.
ReallyGoodEmails
ReallyGoodEmails does just that! It collects some of the most well-designed and effective marketing emails across many industries. The email are categorised into sections like discounts, registration, thank you and many more. It’s a great source for design and content inspiration.
WhatTheFont
WhatTheFont is a really handy tool for identifying fonts. All you need to do is upload a screenshot and it will pick out the glyphs to identify which font it is. If if cannot find the exact match, it will find the very next best thing, or make suggestions to help you identify it better.
PixEden
Pixeden has a little bit of everything for almost any project. It takes away the hassle and cost of getting products printed and taking photographs. Not only do they have a wide range of mockups available, they also have tons of icons, website themes and much more.
The majority of their assets are free to download, or you can pay a small subscription fee to get premium imagery.
Pexels
Buying images from stock websites can be very expensive. Pexels offers free stock photos from all over the world and are mostly free for personal and commercial use.
MorgueFile
MorgueFile is also a great source for free stock images. They have a wide range of free downloadable images, alternatively you can also submit a brief for a specific image and other creatives will submit it to you.
There are also daily quests which anyone can join. All you need to do is upload imagery related to the topic of the day. This is a great tool to stretch your creative legs and see how your work compares with others.
Designspiration
With the likes of some other inspirational websites becoming saturated with a wide range of projects, Designspiration never fails to impress and is mainly focused on graphic design work. If you’re ever lacking inspiration and need some help; this a great free resource for inspo.
Behance
Behance is from the Adobe family, with curated galleries and showcases. It’s a great resource which allows users to share their best work. You can also browse this site for an endless source of inspiration from some of the top designers in the world.
Flat Icon
Flat Icon has over 300,000 vector icons grouped in 5,481 packs. They have tons of free icons to download and keep and is constantly being updated. You can download them in a variety of formats and each icon can be edited easily either on the website, or in Illustrator.
Graphic Burger
Graphic Burger has thousands of ‘Tasty design resources made with care for each pixel’ and are free for both personal and commercial use. From hanging wall sign mock-ups to free fonts, you can spend hours on this website experimenting with different templates.
Gridzzly
Grizzly is a really simple full-page interactive interface for creating your own grid paper. Simply type in your required values print it off at home.
Anything we’ve missed?
Let us know of any other free design resources that you’ve come across. We’re always seeking out new ways to help businesses with their design issues, so get in touch!
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