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In 2009, I started a stock media company with a single vision: to provide premium creative content that everyone could afford. This idea grew into VideoBlocks, followed by the launch of GraphicStock and AudioBlocks. Now, we’re adding millions of photos to our new image Marketplace and it’s time to bring our expanding libraries together as Storyblocks.
Creating engaging visual content doesn’t have to require a financial investment. Sure, at one time graphic designers needed expensive software and even more costly images to craft a winning visual campaign. But thanks to a host of free online resources, anyone can design high-quality visual stories with ease. Of course, navigating the sea of online images and editing tools is easier said than done. Some require membership, others charge royalty fees, some require advance permission and others charge for high-definition. Fortunately, we’ve scoured the Web for the most complete, the easiest to use and the most innovative resources to aid even the most amateur designer in crafting stunning visual content. Check out these 60 totally free design resources for non-designers...
Stop me if this seems familiar. You have just written the most epic blog post of your business career and you want to create amazing images to help you promote it. Knowing how things change in social media on a regular basis you fire up a Google search for “social media image sizes”. Maybe you even add in the current year to weed out old results. Perhaps you go one step further and search for “Facebook image sizes 2017”. No matter what you search for you still seem to find three different answers. And even if you find what you think is current info, there are so many different options listed for each network, you’re not sure which dimensions to use. Fear not! I have compiled a list of the most commonly used social media image sizes. The infographic below shows only the images and dimensions you can easily control with your design, not every single image size you’ll see on the networks. Some of the images you see on Facebook, for example, are pulled in from other places and therefore we don’t really “design” for those spaces. And the best news is you can get away with using some of these social media image sizes on multiple networks....
Logoshuffle is a powerful automated logo builder which allows anyone to generate infinite alternative logo designs customized to your preferred brand name, tagline, font and color scheme. Once you have input your brand name, tagline and preferred color scheme Logoshuffle displays nine alternative designs. You can request additional sets by simply clicking on the Shuffle button. Designs that suit you can be saved and kept until you decide which one to buy.Icons are outsourced and licensed from the NounProjec. Pricing: free to use for generating new logo designs. You pay only to download the final high quality version. A 400x400 .PNG version of the final logo you have created costs $29....
A lot of these lists just cram everything and anything into the lineup. So, we decided to pick our designers’ brains to bring you the best resources that we are using on a daily basis.
PngImg.com is a large collection of high-quality images of object cutouts on transparent backgrounds ready to be downloaded and used in your next project. You can easily search for the subject you are looking for and select from the image results your favorite ones for immediate download. No registration or login is required. 100% free. N.B.: From the notes in the about page of the site it appears as if some of the images contained in this catalog may have been simply copied from other sources without securing permissions for re-use. Be warned. My comment: Very useful resource for finding image cutouts of objects that can be integrated in existing layouts or photographs thanks to their having a trasparent background. Try it out: http://pngimg.com...
Whether you are a web designer, a marketer or a just an owner of a small business you know what it’s like to be dealing with images on a daily basis. Now, making the background white or transparent (in case you want to use your image layered elsewhere and believe me you will), may seem a bit complicated for those of us coming from the nondesign background. Well, I’ve got good news for you! It doesn’t need to be! Today we’ve got plenty of both online and offline options that will let you do anything with your backgrounds without any knowledge of specialized software such as Photoshop or GIMP. The following tools can be a great alternative, won’t cost you a penny and you’ll be surprised just how easy it can be to edit backgrounds. Afterall, do you really think all these bloggers spend hours learning how to edit their visuals? Nope, they’ve got a couple of tricks up their sleeves and so can you. So, let’s explore that creative zen!...
Color makes a design come alive.It can attract attention, set a mood, and even influence our emotions and perceptions. But sometimes it can be hard to know where to start when choosing a color palette for your design project. So we’ve done the hard work for you— giving you 100 color combinations inspired by nature, food & drink, travel, and everyday items. Want to use these color combinations in Canva? Click here to sign up for free if you haven’t already (if you haven’t — are you kidding me?!). Canva lets you change the colors of your design by entering the hex code in the color menu. Check out the video below for a quick tutorial on how...
I joined HubSpot in September 2011 as a blogger. At the time, I needed to know how to write and educate through my writing. Flash forward to today. My content role has evolved eons beyond what I could ever have imagined. To conquer lead gen, I mastered ebook production. To help spread data, I learned how to create infographics. When I write blog posts, that typically means designing a SlideShare or other visual element to accompany the posts. It's been fun, but it certainly hasn't been easy. These days, content means so much more than just writing. And for those of you who understand that content marketing is a critical component of inbound success, content will need to mean more than just writing for you, too. Download our full collection of free content marketing templates here. But rather than panic about the endless content formats you need to go master, we're here to make it easy for you. In this post, you'll find what I wish I had once upon a content marketer's dream: a full collection of 386+ free, customizable, content creation templates. Let's take a look at what's inside....
Undoubtedly, Adobe Creative Cloud is still the best choice for working with visuals and doing advanced design work. But creating great visuals no longer requires you to be a graphic design professional. Even if you don’t have the skills, you can use a variety of free web-based visual tools for designing eye-popping graphics directly in your browser. In this blog post, you’ll find six of the top free visual tools that you can use for your online project.Which visual tools do you use?...
Do you want to master successful graphic design? If so, you can't just focus on finding the right images and colors to use. In reality, one of the most important parts of effective design is ensuring that you find the right combination of fonts to use together. Using multiple fonts in one design is often essential, but it can also be challenging.
To marry typography in a design, you need to find fonts that work in harmony without looking too similar; fonts that offer contrast without fighting for the reader's eye. Most importantly, you want to find fonts that don't clash in some way that the other fonts look awkward. In order to find type combinations that pair well together, try out the useful tools below....
When you are browsing different social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, you are likely to see images with text on them – these can be inspirational, informative, or just plain fun. Having your message on a colourful image will catch your customer’s eye more effectively than just using text alone.
However, if you are a small business owner, you probably don’t have the budget to hire a a graphic designer. Luckily, there are plenty of options on the market today to help you create the graphic yourself for minimal time and effort....
No matter what your specialism, there's bound to be a tool that's of interest on this month's list. Designing iOS icons? There's a superb gallery of designs to help you get a handle on what's already out there. Frustrated with your clunky version control 'system'? Folio is a slick new app that can help with that.There's also a new inspiration site...
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Color is such a fundamental part of the way we perceive the world that we often take it for granted. Think about it: From the youthful and vivid orange on someone’s attire to the gray and gloomy sky above us, colors have the power to mold our perceptions of others and even the circumstances we find ourselves in. This is why one of the most powerful tools in a designer’s arsenal is color. It can either make or break a design; it can be the determining factor in engaging viewers or sending them promptly on their way. As a non-designer, I often find it difficult to find just the right colors for my amateur projects. Whether I’m creating a simple image to support my content or more elaborate projects such as a slide deck or infographic, I frequently spend a good amount of time looking for the perfect color scheme. I ask myself questions like: Do I want my design to be inviting? Provocative and bold? Or intelligent and elegant? Unless you’re a seasoned designer, it takes time and effort to find a color combination that works, which is why the design team at Visme decided to provide our users with a handy list of beautiful color schemes from websites that have been recognized by Awwwards, the most prestigious award for Web designers and developers....
Many artists today are taking the e-commerce road to market their talent. And that’s actually a great idea. Amazon, eBay and other popular online selling p
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Web design has its fair share of intricacies and technical complications. It’s a specialized field that does not just require creativity – you need the right tools to make the work as seamless as possible as well. Google, being the trusted online genius that you rely on each time you have a question in mind, has laid everything down for developers and designers. Google Chrome allows you to install powerful and helpful extensions that make the job easier. And with design and developer tools built right into your favorite browser, it’s all easier and more efficient from hereon. Here are 20 free Chrome extensions that make web design a whole lot easier....
One of the keys to making your design come alive is choosing just the right color combination. Whether you’re attempting to evoke the feelings associated with a breathtaking landscape, a romantic sunset or a dynamic scene bursting with color, it takes a trained eye to bring together the perfect hues to drive your message home. To save you some time and effort in your search for the ideal color combination, we’ve created a list of beautiful color schemes you can use in any of your projects. These color presets are already available for you within Visme, so you can easily apply them to any of your own designs by simply clicking on the color combination of your choice, as seen below....
Are you including images in your social media content? Looking for easy-to-use tools to help you create images for your content strategy? If the idea of using Photoshop makes your head spin or hiring a graphic designer isn’t an option, there are many easy-to-use, low-cost alternatives available to you to create social media graphics. In this article, I’ll show you 6 easy tools that will help you create compelling graphics for social media.
The best collection of free product mock-ups from the internet. Pick one, upload your design and download the final image ready for your projects. Smartmockups app - The easiest way to create stunning product screenshots without using Photoshop Premium mockups - More than 300 premium digital, print and screen mockups to choose from. Changeable backgrounds - Change the background color or add beautiful background gradients....
According to Buffer, visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. And if you need any more evidence to convince you visuals are essential to your content marketing, just consider all these stats.
But honestly ... who's got time for all that? And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly have a degree in graphic design, or the budget to hire someone who does. So, what's a design-impaired marketer to do?
Luckily, over the past couple years, we've been on a mission at HubSpot to make visual content creation much less of an obstacle for the average marketer. How, you ask? Templates, my friends ... templates. And what's great about these templates is they're all built for software you probably already have on your computer: PowerPoint. I'm going to walk you through all the visual content marketing templates we have available for free to download, and show you how we've used them ourselves to create awesome visuals right in PowerPoint....
In order to arrange your design, you need a place to start. Backgrounds are the foundation of your graphics — it helps pave the path to forming a successful composition. Textures and colors help create depth and contrast, allowing your graphics to stand out and get noticed. Well composed images can help create space for you to overlay text, while visually communicating your message at the same time. Using a background can help give your designs more context and provide a visual element to help support your content. Bonus: We’ve designed most of the images in this article as templates for you to personalize! To use them for your own stuff, just click them and they’ll be ready to edit in your Canva account (No Canva? It’s free!).
There’s no reason for your designs to look drab – especially when it comes to color. A quick glance online and you’ll find a stockpile of color scheme apps ready to help you learn, play and perfect your next palette.From clever Hex code games to comprehensive color wheels, here are 15 of our favorite free color scheme apps to take your designs to the next level....
Share As Image is a Chrome extension and bookmarklet tool that you take with you from site to site. It lets you instantly turn text into an image! When you find something interesting, highlight it, click the bookmarklet and get ready to share!
A whole new way to share content.
Microcontent is where it's at. With Share As Image, you have a whole new way of instantly creating highly shareable content as an image....
As an owner of a blog, you need to have engaging, relevant and updated content that satisfy the needs of your readers. There are several ways through which a blog owner can make sure that there is enough and more content on his or her blog at any given time.
The most invincible pillar and pinnacle in any online business are therefore the creation and writing of content which is engaging to the readers that visit your blog. There are several ways in which you can create more content for your blog to make sure that you achieve your desired goals of online business.
Do you want to make your infographics iconic? Okay, so we don’t mean “iconic” in the usual sense. We mean using icons in your infographic design. Icons are those little illustrative graphic images/clip art that represent an object, action or idea. They are often stylized and simplified designs. N
Using icons can make your infographic design more cohesive and more professional. With Venngage you can choose from over 10,000 icons in our icon library and stylize them to your preference by editing their colors, sizes and positions. Here are some tips for how to use icons in your infographics....
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Storyblocks is an improved one-stop-shop for high quality stock media at a fraction of the cost, with millions of images, videos, audio clips, and more! A favorite tool, modestly priced and highly recommended. 9.5/10