ROYALTY FREE DESIGN RESOURCES FOR PRINT ON DEMAND

September 14, 2021

You have an exciting idea for your brand new Print on Demand ecommerce business. The only problem…

You aren’t sure how to find popular designs you can use.

It can feel overwhelming if you don’t have free design resources at your fingertips. Creating a successful store means creating unique designs customers will love. Stealing someone else’s design or using images that are trademarked or copyrighted in any way can get your new business in hot water. It may seem that your resources are limited, but nothing could be further from the truth.

What is royalty free?

Royalty free is a license that allows for both personal and commercial use. Often, stock image sites charge a small fee to allow a customer to download an image for design or other creative uses. There are also other free resource sites online that don’t charge a fee, but to be sure your new design won’t give you trouble, it’s important to make certain the site specifically states how you can use the image.

There are some categories that are always free to use. Those include:

• High school sports teams
• State flags
• NASA images
• Landmarks

Ready for some amazing royalty free design resources for your Print on Demand store? We have a master list just for you!

Free design resources

Photography

Unsplash: This incredible website is brought to you by talented photographers worldwide and has 850,000+ high-resolution photos you can download and use.

Flickr commons: Flickr is a popular stock photography site, but they also have a commons project that allows creatives access to images with expired or otherwise unknown copyright restrictions free for creatives to use.

Public Domain Pictures: This site has two options for designers. You can pay a small fee to download a higher quality image or use their free download option. The site does warn that if you intend to use an image for commercial use, some photos may require a model or property release so be careful to avoid images with products.

Magdeleine: A small website with hand-picked free photos meant to inspire may be just what you need. With a heavy focus on nature, there are also abstract images, and a few focused on technology.

ISO Republic: With thousands of free CC0 photos to choose from, you can surf collections until you find the perfect photo. The blog has inspiration, tutorials, and even marketing information.

1 Million Free Pictures: It’s a fantastic source of free pictures, many of which are a bit more abstract than other sites. You can surf a variety of specific categories, however, there are many more sponsored links than some of the other sites.

Free Stock Photos: The images on this site are free to download and use for your designs. They have staff photographers that create many of the images but also acquire images from other sources as well. They do offer a few sponsored images provided by a 3rd party you can download for a small fee.

Realistic Shots: A site dedicated to lifestyle photography, you can find gorgeous technology shots, travel images, and much more! Plus, you can sign up for 7 new free images delivered to your inbox every week.

Public Domain Archive: 100% free breathtaking stock photos with new images added weekly. The images are all free for personal or commercial use and will definitely inspire your designs.

Pixabay: Haven’t found what you are looking for yet? With over 1 million free images and video, you are sure to find the right image for your design on Pixabay. Powered by a community of creatives, it’s a great site for your design needs!

Those are just some of our favorites. For even more sites for free stock photography and images, check out these 31 websites.

Typography

FontSquirrel: Fonts are often an important part of your design. This site is a great resource if you are looking for something specific for your next design. With hundreds of free fonts, you can download and incorporate them into your next design.

FontFabric: Founded in 2008 by Bulgarian Svet Simov, FontFabric is a delightful site with about 90 fonts available for free. Their team of designers also releases new fonts from time to time. It’s good to check for new releases if you didn’t find what you were looking for the first time.

Google Fonts: A fabulous resource with around 900 free fonts available. You can search their collection and filter them by width, style, and slant.

Free Goodies for Designers: If you are looking for something a little more custom, you might enjoy free goodies. These unique styles are free for personal or commercial use.

Clip Art & Design Elements

Old Design Shop: A fantastic site for vintage style designs sure to inspire you, the old design shop is home to a variety of eclectic designs.

Designer Candies: Looking for something more up-to-date? Designer Candies might be exactly what you need. The freebies section contains a variety of resources free to download and use as you wish.

Media Militia: A great place if you are looking for 3D rendered images for your 2D designs. There is a variety of elements to choose from such as rendered typography, textures, lens flares, and much more!

Icons

The Noun Project: A vast database with more than 120,000 icons free for download, you can incorporate these into your designs. You can also share your own designs with the community.

Icon Monstr: While not as robust as The Noun Project, this site still has a wide variety of icons for free. There is plenty of design inspiration in their 308+ collections.

FlatIcon: With the largest database of free icons available in 64 formats, this site is famous for providing designers exactly what they need.

Now that you have the right resources, you can start working on creating amazing designs for your Print on Demand business. You can also check out our list of free design tools online to help get you started.

You don’t have a store yet? Let us help! Click here to get started and you’ll be selling in no time!

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