Sunday, January 6, 2013

The Best Free Design Resources for Flyers and Brochures


The one thing everybody likes about the Internet, is that if you need something, there is always a place where it will be given freely. When it comes to designing printed materials like flyers and brochures for example, you can easily get the right fonts, images, textures etc. with the right keywords as well as search practice.

Here, we are proud to give you our round up of the best free design resources for flyers and brochures of the year 2012. We have image collections, font libraries, Photoshop brushes and shapes, as well as a few template sites. These are highly recommended and absolutely free resources that can inspire and ultimately enable you to create professional looking flyers and brochures. You just need to have a keen eye in spotting the best of what these sites have to offer.
brochures and flyers

Free Image Collections –  Below are the best free image collections that we use most of the time. Some of these require attribution, but others are great collections that are totally 100% free for commercial use.

http://www.sxc.hu – Great collection with categories and even tutorials. Made for sharing images with other artists. You will have to create an account though to fully access it.
http://www.freefoto.com  -  A good collection, BUT be careful of the search results, as they do not usually give the best results. The sponsored results typically gives you better images, but of course are paid.
http://www.morguefile.com/ - A highly recommended site. 100% absolutely free. Ok for commercial use and many High Resolution type images too. Some people though just want to be informed where you put the images. Depending on how specific your needs are for your images, you will usually get what you need here. Even ones where you can lift items up from a plain background.
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net - Plenty of professionally made images. Unfortunately the free service only provides low resolution copies and requires attribution. The real value here is that there are really a lot of good images to choose from.
http://www.kavewall.com/stock/  - Good collection of artistic work that is 100% free. However, not much images of people here. Lots of great texture and art though.
http://openphoto.net -  Lots of great and real photographs here to choose from. Not much though if you want studio pictures. Usually though, you will have to attribute the free image to the author.
http://www.rgbstock.com/ - Lots of good, professionally made photographs. You will have to register though to get them.
http://www.freephotosbank.com  - Lots of great Photos here as well.  Be careful; look at which are real results and which are the ads.
http://www.stockvault.net/  - A good mix with great categories. 100% free, but you can support or donate to the artists here.
http://www.deviantart.com/  -  A ton of great artists here! Lots of photographers and digital artists showing off their artistic work. Not always free, but there are a lot who share their work under creative commons or just needs an attribution.

Free Font Collections – These are the best font collections out there, where you can download and install for Photoshop and ultimately your own system.

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/  -  A wonderful font collection! The best thing about this site is that most of the fonts are deemed ok for commercial use, all for free!
http://www.google.com/webfonts  -  While these are marked as Web fonts, you can actually download the files and install them for your use. All free and ok for printing as well!
http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com  - This is not the most extensive collection out there, but all the fonts are also free for commercial use. They also have a great manifesto.
http://www.1001freefonts.com/index.htm  - This one is famous, simply because of the SHEER amount of fonts that they have, both for PC and MAC. You will want to read the accompanying text and license of the fonts though to see if it is ok for commercial use. They have a nice category organization here.
http://www.1001fonts.com/  -  A good alternative to the site above. Also, it has thousands of free fonts. Check as well if they are ok for commercial use, but most are good for personal works.
http://www.fontpark.net/en/#  - Very extensive collection, with large category choices. All for free and all okay for commercial use.
http://www.dafont.com/  - Also has a great font collection. Has the option for you to preview fonts with your own text example. You will have to check with each font license though for commercial use.
http://www.urbanfonts.com/  - Has good categories and great creative free fonts. Also check with each font to see if they are licensed for commercial use.

Free Photoshop Brushes – One of the best ways to jazz up your flyers and brochures is with the addition of brush accents.

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psbrushes/   - Totally one of the best places to get free Photoshop brushes. Created by artists for artists, Deviantart has one of the best collections out there. Use the search to get to the kind of brush that you need.
http://myphotoshopbrushes.com/brushes/  - A large collection of brushes here. The great thing about this site is that all the brushes can be categorized, so you can easily search for the style that you need.
http://hellostreetlight.blogspot.com/  - If you are into more grunge type or textured brushes, here is the site for you. Of course, all of these are free.
http://www.brusheezy.com/brushes  - Lots of great brushes. You can categorize them via Photoshop version here which is useful.
http://www.brushking.eu/  - They have lots of very artistic styles here, including pattern and texture brushes.

Free Photoshop Vector Shapes – If you can’t draw very good using Photoshop vectors (or even in illustrator) then you will some custom vector shapes. Luckily for you,

http://www.mypixel.se/freebies/resources/ultimate-list-1500-free-photoshop-custom-shapes/   - This comprises the biggest collection of custom shapes that we have seen. All free and most of them a pack collection of thematic shapes.
http://blog.logoswish.com/free-photoshop-custom-shapes-download/   -  This one is a great collection if you are looking for specific icons or for graphic logos.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/11/the-ultimate-collection-of-photoshop-custom-shapes/  -  This is a great collection if you are looking for shapes or silhouettes of people.
http://www.tutorialchip.com/freebies/adobe-photoshop-custom-shapes-for-download/   - Another extensive collection. This one has a lot of shapes from nature, including animals, trees etc.
http://www.psd-dude.com/tutorials/resources/arrow-photoshop-custom-shapes.aspx   -  This one is a collection of arrow custom shapes, perfect for marketing flyers and brochures.

Free Print Templates – Of course, for print design, templates make a lot of the work easier on designers. This allows them to concentrate on the layout and not on the technicalities of the document for print work. Here are a couple of free flyer and brochure template sites, perfect for what you need to do.

http://www.icanbecreative.com/free-psd-flyer-templates.html  - This one has great and inspirational flyers templates, perfect for party flyers or similar kinds of social events.
http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2012/08/flyer-templates.html  - Extensive collection of flyer templates here.
http://www.artfans.info/free-modern-and-professional-brochure-design-templates/   -  Great collection of corporate brochure templates, great for public relations or reputation management prints.
http://www.printplace.com/templates/brochure-designs.aspx   -  Straight from a brochure printing company, these free templates are great as they have pre-set borders and bleeds already. Only a few options, but printplace.com brochure templates are already print ready.
http://freepsdfiles.net/print-templates/tri-fold-brochure-psd-template/   -  A great basic trifold brochure template from freepsdfiles.net. You can easily replace the main elements here with your own.

Those collections should be numerous enough for you to create something unique, interesting and of course very professional looking for your flyer and brochure marketing campaigns. It is all about getting the right artistic combination from all these great and more importantly FREE resources. Good Luck!

Image source: http://graphicdesign.stocklayouts.com/2012/03/20/unique-brochures-flyers-for-a-vintage-clothing-store/

4 comments:

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