Visuals can make or break a design.
If you don’t have a professional photographer or videographer on staff, or if you need imagery that is difficult to capture, consider using high-quality stock photography or video to enhance your designs. Included below are 10 incredible sites where you can download beautiful stock photos and videos.
Where To Find Professional Photos And Videos For Your Designs:
1. ThinkStock offers a large, searchable selection of stock photos, vector art, and illustrations that are all generally approved for any type of usage – personal or commercial. Like many other massive stock libraries, this collection is riddled with cheesy images. If you can steer clear of the obviously ridiculous compositions, this is a great resource for visuals.
2. Getty Images has an impressive collection of photos and video clips, such as Babe Ruth footage, and clips from Hollywood award ceremonies. Site visitors are required to click on each individual item and enter details about usage before a price is viewable, which can make this site time-consuming to peruse. Overall though, Getty Images is an amazing resource, so definitely take the time to check it out.
3. PicJumbo provides beautiful, free stock photos under the tagline: totally free photos for your commercial & personal use. Two of the only usage restrictions for these photos are: do not resell the images, and do not publish the photos to other free image sites. Unlike many of the other free stock sites, PicJumbo organizes photos according to categories, which makes navigating this collection relatively easy.
4. Foodies Feed is one of the best resources for free, stunning photos of food. If you need professional, food-related stock images, bookmark this site and visit it regularly. Luckily this library is well organized, and a pleasure to navigate. Like all of these sites, reselling the photos is restricted. Other than that, though, these images can be used in any manner.
5. Gratisography currently has fewer photos than some of the other stock photography sites, however they are all quite lovely and more images are added regularly. Unfortunately, you cannot search for images by keyword or category so your only option is to scroll through all of the photos until you find what you need. All photos are free of charge, and free of copyright restrictions.
6. Picography has a great tagline that explains the awesomeness of this site perfectly: Free hi-resolution photos. Use them however you like. This site also lacks search options, so once again you might find yourself scrolling endlessly before you select a photo. However scrolling seems like a small price to pay for the stellar images that are available on this website.
7. Unsplash is another free site that is brimming with beautiful photographs. The site clearly states that you can do whatever you want with the images. Prepare for more scrolling though since there aren’t categories, or a search bar. 10 new photos are shared every 10 days, so the collection consistently becomes more amazing.
8. Dollar Photo Club is a rising star in the pool of stock photo sites. For only $1 per download, images from around the world can be purchased for web design, and many other uses. Look at the license language before downloading and sharing freely though because there are some special restrictions; for example, social media usage is limited.
9. Pond5 sells a wide variety of media assets including photos, illustrations, and even sound effects, among other things. Most people though know Pond5 as a great option for high quality video clips. If you want to weave together video segments to tell a visual story, or use clips to enhance another type of project, Pond5 is a great place to start.
10. VideoBlocks is a subscription-based market that charges subscribers a comparatively small fee to download unlimited video clips, motion backgrounds, and a variety of other types of content, under a royalty-free license that never expires. If you need video, check out this site immediately.
If you need more, here’s another great resource for free stock photos from our friends at Canva.
I hope these resources help you create designs that you and your audience will love.
And ultimately I hope that your designs help you build the business of your dreams.
Want breathtaking designs?
Contact Astute Communications today to get started!