There are times when you have to use some art in your work, but you don't have the skills or the money to acquire them. Lucky for you don't have to have money to use other people's works. Today, I will talk about creative commons or licenses that require the user to give credit.

Nobody is a master of everything, there are times when you focus on your strong points and let others help you with problems that you can't do or fix. My biggest problem is that I don't draw well. When I need to add an image I use other people's works, but I don't have the money to pay them. That's OK, because I can use images that are in the public domain. For example I like how many talented artist has contribute images for free at OpenClipArt.org

Although the library is small compared to commercial web sites, its growing every day.

Then there are the fonts, which a graphics designer will use at some point at his or her career. My go to is google fonts at Fonts.google.com if you want to import the fonts to your website. But lets say you want to download some fonts, where can I download them? Well, you can download them at google-webfonts-helper or you can use The Font Library and you can quickly download the fonts. The licence that you will be probably using will be the Open Font License. However, there will be times when you have to design a font that does not exist. Well if you are good with art (no me!) you can use FontForge and create your own!

Then there the professional stock images. I can take pictures, but I don't have an understanding of lighting and exposure. The place I normally go to is PixaBay, Pexels.com, or Flickr.com, which offers plenty of free images. However, here is where it gets tricky. Some licences ask you to give credit to the user. For example, see this picture:

By Neil Crump.

I can use it for free on this website. I can use it for commercial use, but I have to give credit.

Now, lets say I want to use this Image for one of my projects:

Well, because this is a Creative Commons Zero (CC0), I can use it for anything, not pay for its use, and I am not obligated to give credit. So, I can use this image and use it as a model and make a derivative image. For example I created an image vector art with the picture above.

The point I am trying to make is that there are some free resources out there, but make sure you read its license. There are some resources that require that you give credit, pay, or not change its nature.

So how they make money? Well, some people are giving their small sample or low quality for free. In return, they sell their premium quality if you want more.

Other people just are very friendly and don't want anything in return. For example, I have a small images at OpenClipArt that I gave away for free. Why? I think the images can be used for a better purpose.

Well, that it for today. There are tons of free stuff out there, but you have to read the licenses to see what you can or can't do.

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