More than a few online services provide free downloads of photos, fonts, vectors, and other design elements. Other services provide these types of elements, especially photos, at affordable prices, and some do both.
Free is always nice, but that is only true when the quality you look for is there. There may have been times you have had to sift through large numbers of design elements to find what you were looking for, only to discover the quality of what you finally located was unsuitable.
Design elements offer two important features. They contribute to the overall quality of your end product, and they can be significant time savers. If you have experienced problems in finding just what you want, 1001FreeDownloads offers a range of well organized, high quality design elements and design element sets including free patterns.
Ready-to-go Patterns can be Great Time Savers
Patterns come in infinite combinations of lines, curves, images, colors, and shades. Many, if not most of the more interesting and useful patterns would be extremely difficult to create manually. A ready-to-use pattern can therefore be a great time saver in addition to enhancing the look and feel of a web page. A pattern is often used as a backdrop, or a pattern can be used to catch a visitor’s attention. Patterns, when used in a more subtle manner, can make a web page pleasing to the eye, even though viewers may not know exactly what it is that makes it so attractive.
Patterns, like any other design element, should be chosen with care, and with a definite purpose in mind. A pattern consisting of tiny polka dots might compliment other design elements on a page. If the polka dots are just a little too large however, they will become a distraction. Look at these samples, and visualize how you might be able to use them.
Pixel Art Patterns 2
Stripe 1 Patterns
Textures: Easy to Incorporate, and Easy on the Eyes
Textures can be made up of patterns, although in most cases the patterns are randomly distributed, or there are no patterns involved at all. Textures are usually easier to incorporate into web designs than are patterns, and they can be used as backgrounds for headers, sidebars, or for an entire page. It is best to choose a texture that does not tend to create a distraction or overwhelm other design elements on a page.
A certain texture may be selected because it relates to a website’s theme, but most are chosen for the sake of appearance. You will find it beneficial to have a nice selection of textures in your design toolkit. A good place to start is here.
Bleached Paper Texture 3
Blue Stone Texture 8
Brushes: Add Tremendous Detail in a Click
Brushes, like textures and patterns, are design elements that would be extremely difficult to create manually. Brushes are used in much the same way an artist uses a brush on a canvas to avoid having to cover an area with one thin line at a time. The difference of course is that a “thick” brush a graphic or web designer might use, will often consist of a number of embedded and highly detailed patterns.
Photoshop has an excellent selection of brushes, including the examples shown here. Try creating a smoking brush manually, and you will see what time-savers they can be.
Smoke Brushes
Mini Arrows Brushes
Looking for High Quality Photos?
There are a number of online resources for free photos, and finding one you would like to incorporate into your website’s design would not appear to be difficult. The sheer magnitude of available photos can be a problem at times, although most of resources that are available are at least somewhat organized.
Nevertheless, the quality of the available photos can vary, and it will tend to vary considerably when searching for free photos. You want your website’s photos to be good enough to suit your purposes, rather than almost, but not quite, good enough. Take some time to browse our selection of free photos. The selection is large, but not overwhelmingly so, and the quality is uniformly excellent.
Railroad near the Beach
Yellow Cabs on a Street
Vintage Ship in Port
Vectors Send a Clear and Simple Message
A vector is often a designer’s favorite type of design element to work with. While a vector does not normally covey the same amount of information as a photo, it is usually much easier to work with. Vectors are used to great effect in TV ads, and they serve the same purpose when embedded in websites.
It is often much easier to find a vector, or a set of vectors, that will serve your purposes, than to find photographs that will do the same. Vectors are nice to have in your designer’s toolbox when you are working on a tight schedule, and you are in need of graphics to illustrate a point or emphasize an idea on a web page.
Modern Workspace 2
Data Analysis 2
Computer Programming
Icons can Add a Touch of Class
While you can often get by having a small selection of icons to work with, if you think of them as design elements, and not just as functional workhorses, you might consider incorporating icons in the future that will add a little flair or a touch of class to your webpages.
Free icons are plentiful, but like other free design elements, their quality can vary. More than a few website and app designers have gone so far as to create their own custom icons. That is a great idea, but the effort could be a wasted one if something you could use is already close at hand.
The three icons sets shown here are but a fraction of those we have made available. If you set aside a little time to browse through our selections, the chances are good that you will find what you need. The right choice of icons will definitely add character to your web pages.
Barker Icon Set
Science Icon Pack
Home Icons
Choosing a Font may be more Important than You Think
It can be easy to forget that fonts are design elements, and not just ways to display text. Text fonts used in formal documents, are not always suitable choices for web pages. Unless your website is a business or corporate website, you a wide range of fonts to choose from, including those that will fit in nicely with your theme.
Even professional websites are more likely to use Arial than Times New Roman, since the former is “stronger”, especially when bold text is used. Whatever you choose, make certain it is easily readable, and does not distract from the theme of your website, or visitors are not likely to stick around. The three fonts shown here are all quite readable even though they are vastly different in style.
Birds of Paradise
Altera
Giraffe 9
What you have seen is a small sampling of quality design elements we can add to your collection. There will be no need on your part to search for higher quality elements in a forest of lesser quality items. Every element in every category we offer is of superior quality. One of the best resources of design aids is right here at your fingertips.
