Best Graphic Design Resources
A lot can be said about learning graphic design. Graphic design is one of the most widespread creative career fields today as it naturally lends itself to various job sectors from marketing and advertising, interior design or fashion to IT and web.
Today and with the steady and rising growth of technology which doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon there are an abundance of jobs available and numerous careers you could get into with an education and portfolio in graphic design. You could be a Logo Designer, Senior Art Director, Web Designer, Mobile App Designer, Digital Designer, Video Game Creator or Advertising Consultant, to name just a few! Many businesses will often outsource projects for their media and graphic design work to agencies and freelancers. Online graphic design courses are great investments too because they are often dramatically cheaper than typical college and university fees. In addition, classes are done remotely making it a cheaper and often more convenient option than scheduled classes.
Immerse yourself fully into the many websites, forums, videos, tutorials and great books which should all act as a secondary aid since of course nothing beats having your very own private tutor. You can learn more about our online courses, enrol or ask questions here .
For those of you feeling inspired to read texts about graphic design there are some books I recommend. Please note while these books will offer insight and hopefully teach you something, they often disappoint anyone thinking of these as a D-I-Y read and become a graphic designer manual. It would be extremely difficult without a teacher to become a Graphic Designer as you need to make mistake and be shown how to avoid them and since we offer courses for, we suggest books may simply help with your overall knowledge of graphic design.
Since there are so many wonderful books about graphic design that it is difficult to select a Top Four However, the following titles come highly recommended by our tutors and provide a decent overview to enlighten your graphic design child.
Number 1) The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst,
Number 2) Logo: The Reference Guide To Symbols and Logotypes by Michael Evamy,
Number 3) How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy.
Number 4) Just My Type by Simon Garfield and is one of Noah’s favourite for being a good all-rounder demonstrating how a good font communicates to the reader on an almost subliminal level and how it influences and impacts designs.
Since many of our clients and Blue Sky Graphics students will sometimes ask about accessing materials online the good news is there are many free design resources that can help you out.
Be aware that although a lot of the resources may appear free there is often a charge at some point in the process for the better-quality items. But using free images, fonts, tools and other assets, may be low on quality. Or even worse, on disreputable sites they may have been stolen from their rightful creators… who never intended them to be free in the first place.
So, our senior designers and tutors at Blue Sky Graphics have put manged our heads together and recalled a few sites and places to make things that much more convenient for you.
In the following recommended sites, you’ll find free design resources that are reliably high-quality and legitimately free to download (at time of writing). Whether you’re after images or videos, fonts or design tools, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for here;
1. Vectors: Vexels
There is a reasons this is top of the list and it is recommended as the coolest vector graphics site since it has basically got everything needed from skylines, silhouettes to cartoons: well over 15,000 PNG & SVG products to choose from, free vectors for new and existing users as well as super cool and awesome content for niche and discerning designers. For those of you needing a quick fix rest assured there are hundreds of ready-to-edit designs readily available to choose.
2. Mockups: Pixeden
If it is decent quality and free graphics that you are looking for, head straight to Pixeden. Stocked up ceiling high with excellent free textures as well as web graphic images to use they make any graphic designer’s life a whole lot more convenient when it’s time to present a project or show your client how awesome your design looks! Try it and let us know what you think by email at noah@blueskygraphics.co.uk.
3. Colours: Hexy
You don’t have to go through the tiresome and monotonous task of choosing select layers, highlighting text, or opening the Colour Picker to get a hex value of a certain colour any longer. Just use the fantastically fabulously free Hexy eyedropper tool to click on any colour on the object and copy it right to your clipboard.
4. Behance :
Sketch part of the Adobe family, this is a rather good and popular online platform to display and learn other people’s creative work, including, graphic design, UX UI designs and illustrations. Visit them at behance.net
5. Photopea : Image editor is a free online site that allows you to open and edit PSD, XCF, Photoshop, and most other image files.
6. Google Fonts: is an ingenious and healthy stock room of open source web fonts for designers to use how they wish. Google fonts given their brand prestige are a good source for anyone looking to explore font types.
Here are some other great sites we recommend you visit since they offer invaluable resources to any Graphic Designer needing images, backgrounds, vectors and content:
https://www.canva.com/photos/free/
https://www.lifeofpix.com/
http://all-free-download.com/
https://www.storyblocks.com/stock-image
https://unsplash.com/search/photos/free
https://kaboompics.com/
https://gratisography.com/
https://burst.shopify.com/photos
https://freephotos.cc/
https://stocksnap.io/
https://pngtree.com/
https://librestock.com/
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
https://www.pexels.com/
https://pixabay.com/
http://www.freepik.com/
https://depositphotos.com/free-images.html
https://www.splitshire.com/
https://unsplash.com/
https://burst.shopify.com/
https://www.dreamstime.com/free-photos
Here are some other great sites we recommend that allow you to download graphical decorations:
http://www.freepik.com/
http://www.stockvault.net/
http://all-free-download.com/free-vector/background.html
Free download sites for free wallpapers
https://morguefile.com/
Getting started
When you are ready to further your graphic design career all you have to do is enrol and you can do so by contacting us here.
If you think that distance learning can really jump start your graphic design career as a freelancer or hobby, or In-House Designer, then you should sign up today. Our courses are very affordable and within 10 months you will be a pro using InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Start your distance learning online course now and see a dramatic difference in your creative journey.
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