27 Indispensible Resources for Graphic Designers
Posted January 20, 2009 in Graphic Design, Tools/Resources
Graphic designers are always in a battle to create the best looking results in the least amount of time. Constantly trying to make these gorgeous, polished designs without spending an eternity creating them usually requires using some pre-built elements — things like photoshop brushes, illustrator patterns, textures, etc…
In this list, we’ve compiled some of the best brushes, patterns, textures, fonts, and vectors that will help make your graphic design life a bit easier. Read on for more.
Photoshop Brushes
60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources
Another collection of collections, but there are some great brushes listed in the brushes section… you’ll find some other great Photoshop resources as well.
350+ Retro and Vintage Photoshop Brushes
All vintage and retro designs in this post, but it links to DesignM.ag’s other brush resources, including flowers, space brushes, and more!
20+ Photoshop Painted Inspiration and Brush Resources
Includes a section of great Photoshop Brushes as well as other Photoshop resources.
Illustrator Brushes
80 Best-Of Adobe Illustrator Tutorials, Brushes, .EPSs and Resources
This is noupe’s illustrator counterpart to their “60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources.” Once again, a long list of useful information.
45 Excellent Sets of Adobe Illustrator Brushes
A ton of paintbrush-like brushes, with some floral and geometric brushes as well.
28 Free Illustrator Brushes for making Swooshes and Swirls
The title says it all. More BittBox illustrator brushes, photoshop brushes, patterns, textures and more can be found here.
81 Amazing Argyle Illustrator Brushes
If you’re looking for argyle brushes, this is definitely the right resource – COLORBURNED also has a ton of other illustrator brushes here.
Textures
50+ High Resolution Textures, Tutorials and Resources
This post showcases some great textures, including some grunge, paisley, geometric designs, natural textures, and more.
101 Free Rock and Stone Textures
Includes textures for both natural and colorful rocks and stones. A great place if you’re looking for either.
Design Resources Pack #1: The Grunge Pack, Brushes, Fonts, Textures etc…
Includes textures, fonts and brushes — all in the grunge style.
Arbenting’s Texture Freebies
This lists all of the site’s free textures, including stones, grunge, fabrics, wood, and abstracts.
Patterns
The Showcase of Brilliant Pattern Designs
A great showcase to get your creative juices flowing.
450+ Abobe Illustrator Patterns
A lot of beautiful patterns for any design need.
The ultimate photoshop resource list part 2: patterns + textures
Links to lots of different patterns and textures, plus some tutorials.
Fonts
80 Beautiful Typefaces for Professional Design
The title says it all: lots of different typefaces with a preview of each so that you can easily see if the font is a perfect match.
40+ Excellent Free Fonts for Professional Design
This is a follow up to SmashingMag’s other extremely large font presentation, except these are all free!
50+ Fonts for Big, Bold Headlines
If you’re looking for some bold fonts, here’s the place to go. Includes font previews and links.
30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Know & Should Own
It’s always good to get back to basics – here are Just Creative Design’s suggestions.
Icons
35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets
Dinosaurs, sunny-side up eggs, and elephants are just some of the great free icon sets showcased here.
Tools Icons, Horror Icons and Twitter Icons
Three great icon sets provided free of charge by Smashing Magazine.
VECTORTUTS Freebie: 17 Exclusive Web Icons
A great set of general icons.
Free Icons: Function Icon Set, 128 Completely Free Icons
You may have seen this collection before, but it had to be included in this list of icon resources!
Freebies: A Social Media Icon Set Just For You!
Arbenting’s icon set for social media – also includes 15 Photoshop brushes.
Free Hand Drawn Doodle Icon Set for Bloggers
Some really neat, hand drawn icons.
Vectors
The Ultimate Collection of Free Vector Packs
This features 60 free vector packs, from ribbons and circles to dinosaurs and birds. There’s just a load of good stuff here.
Logo Tools 1 (remix)
A great, free set of vectors with lots of different silhouettes.
Free Vector Swirls and Twirls Pack
Just Creative Design’s free vector pack.
Share Your Favorites
These are only a few of the many resources available out there. Let us know which you use the most, and which are your favorites!
Related posts:
- Best Design Resources of July 2008
- Ultimate Resources For Grunge Design – A Massive Collection
- Best Design Resources of June 2008
- 300+ Vintage Style Textures and Photoshop Brushes
- 25 Tutorials for Advanced Freelance Web Designers
About the author: Natalie is an organizer and an entrepreneur. She works behind-the-scenes at FreelanceFolder, and she played a major role in bringing The Unlimited Freelancer into existence.
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68 Comments
Steven Snell
January 20th, 2009 at 8:16 pmNatalie, thanks for including links to my pages! Very nice collection.
Natalie
January 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm@Steven – Yes, there are quite a lot of resources you’ve provided :) I noticed that when I was compiling the list. Thanks, as always, for scraping the web for them!
Seraphim Collective
January 21st, 2009 at 12:50 amThanks for all these great resources! Bookmarked!
Craig - Abrishca Digital Media
January 21st, 2009 at 12:53 amA great compilation – I think it makes it easier now to have a resource such as this that compiles all the resource lists out there. Thanks again.
Netwala
January 21st, 2009 at 1:27 amAh, great collection and find it easy to stay here than google for the design – development resources!
Thanks a ton!
Cheers!
Ramon Fincken
January 21st, 2009 at 5:58 amNo thats what I call a great resource list !
I’d like to add: http://www.famfamfam.com/ for some very neat icons :)
I’ve linked to this post at: http://www.ramonfincken.com/permalink/topic110.html
Jamie
January 21st, 2009 at 8:19 amIncredible list.. however, I think FamFamFam’s Silk Icons are missing from the icons section (http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/).
jason
January 21st, 2009 at 10:52 amThank you for the great resources
Timothy
January 21st, 2009 at 11:18 amNice list! Much appreciated
Jennae
January 21st, 2009 at 11:47 amThis list is going to save me an immense amount of time. Thank you!
Natalie M Miller
January 21st, 2009 at 11:55 am@Ramon – thanks for the extra resource! There can never be too many icon options :)
I’m glad this post is useful to everyone.
Rahul
January 21st, 2009 at 12:59 pmThanks a lot of your effort to bring in this great list. Many Thanks to Natalie too.
Designer
January 21st, 2009 at 1:04 pmwow…….wow…….wow…….wow…….wow…….wow…….wow
John
January 21st, 2009 at 2:03 pmWow, thanks for the list! Seems like I end up bookmarking a lot more of these than I end up using. That’s okay though… they’ll be there when I need em.
calvin
January 21st, 2009 at 6:58 pmwow.
great list.
the mass of sites on this list is truly fantastic.
thanks a million
calvin-t.blogspot.com
Colorburned
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:44 amThanks so much for mentioning my patterns and brushes!
http://twitter.com/Colorburned
Hernan Valencia
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:56 pmGreat stuff, im bookmarking it and tweeting it
Angie Bowen
January 25th, 2009 at 7:44 pmGreat list of resources, thanks so much for including Arbenting!
Latest Jobs India
January 26th, 2009 at 2:48 amThats A huge List Of resources,
Specially Like The Textures,
I feel Bad That Some Of Them Are Paid,
Its For Sure Everything Doesnt Come For Free,
Thanks For Sharing
Shawn
January 26th, 2009 at 3:14 pmThis is a great! Gonna start digging through all these.
Felix
January 30th, 2009 at 11:53 amQuite a hand-full collection of online quick refs. Nice job. Will need to take time to sort them out, so I’m Bookmarking. More comments may follow as i explore further.
Aditya
January 31st, 2009 at 12:02 pmThis’ll take me days to dig through, thanks! It’s like a large mountain of treasure!
Mr Javo
February 1st, 2009 at 11:16 amThanks for all those awesome resources!!
Biju Subhash
February 6th, 2009 at 4:33 amGreat :D
added to my RSS Reader
suraj
February 13th, 2009 at 2:21 pmawsome…one of the best resource..included various topics…
Roxy Chaney
March 21st, 2009 at 8:15 ambrilliant selection! the background patterns look especially yummy… hadn’t seen that argyle one yet!
oliver
December 29th, 2009 at 5:39 amIf you are looking for free fonts, check http://www.fonts2u.com. Discovered it just few days ago. Their
character map search is awesome! Saved some time when looking for specific character maps supported.
Contractors
December 17th, 2010 at 8:58 amLove the free icon sets – we’ll be using these in our newsletters!
David
January 6th, 2011 at 11:10 amGreat list!
I’d add http://DesignAdvisor.com . It’s a new designer community where your images and logos get reviewed with feedback by the public. Great for feedback and ideas!
Carlos Reyes
February 20th, 2011 at 7:41 pmGreat resources. Thank you. Does anyone have any advice regarding 3D design to make those realistic looking icons like the ones listed above in the resources (35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets). I need something that will allow me to work in a true 3D environment, allowing me to rotate and manipulate the artwork from any angle, as well as compatible with popular image file types. I’ve had some recommendations: Strata 3D, Cinema 4D, Maya, Ice, Houdini, Mental Ray, Renderman, Bryce 3D, Lightwave 3D, etc… Most of these are used for visual effects in advertising and movies. Cinema 4D, Strata 3D and Lightwave 3D seem to fit the parameters of what I’m looking for, especially Cinema 4D.
Would anyone with experience with any of these programs offer their experience and recommendation?
Thank you in advance.
DJ TRUZ
February 3rd, 2012 at 5:55 pmA great compilation – I think it makes it easier now to have a resource such as this that compiles all the resource lists out there. Thanks again.
katalog sinooke
February 25th, 2012 at 7:09 amI’m crazy about this blog and all information that I can find here
How to be a hipster
April 21st, 2012 at 8:10 amI got what you intend,saved to bookmarks, very decent website.
Lighted Leather cover
May 14th, 2012 at 8:33 amI am glad that I came here, Very useful information and a loads thanks for sharing this very nice post
Andy
April 8th, 2013 at 1:33 pmBeing a designer this is what i am in search for. Thanks for sharing and keep it up.
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