50+ Free Resources for Designers: Tools, Assets, and Libraries

Every design project comes with its own set of challenges. Whether you're designing a website, building a UI, creating social media graphics, or preparing assets for a client project, having the right resources can save hours of work.

The good news is that you don't need an expensive subscription for every part of your workflow. There are plenty of free design tools, asset libraries, and online utilities that can help you create better work without starting from scratch.

I've put together this list of 50+ free resources for designers, covering design software, icons, brand logos, fonts, stock images, illustrations, mockups, and more.

Some resources are completely free, while others offer free plans or free assets alongside paid options. Always check the individual license before using assets in commercial projects.

1. Design Tools

Start with the tools you use to create interfaces, edit graphics, build prototypes, and explore visual ideas.

1. Figma — A collaborative design platform for UI design, interactive prototyping, and design systems. Useful for both individual designers and teams.

2. Penpot — An open-source design and prototyping platform with support for vector graphics and design collaboration.

3. Canva — Create social media graphics, presentations, posters, marketing materials, and other visual content using ready-made templates.

4. Photopea — A browser-based image editor that supports PSD and numerous other graphics formats. Handy when you need image-editing capabilities without installing desktop software.

5. GIMP — A free, open-source image editor for photo manipulation, retouching, and raster graphics.

6. Inkscape — A vector graphics editor for creating logos, illustrations, icons, and SVG artwork.

7. Krita — A free painting application designed for digital illustration, concept art, textures, and drawing.

8. Excalidraw — A virtual whiteboard for sketching rough wireframes, mapping user flows, and communicating ideas through simple diagrams.

2. UI Components and Design Systems

You don't always need to design every interface element from scratch. Component libraries and design systems provide reusable building blocks for websites and applications.

1. shadcn/ui — A collection of customizable React components built around Tailwind CSS and accessible UI primitives.

2. Flowbite — A Tailwind CSS component library with interface elements, examples, and templates for common web layouts.

3. Preline UI — A library of interface components and examples for building responsive websites with Tailwind CSS.

4. Bootstrap — A widely used frontend toolkit with a responsive grid, ready-made components, and CSS utilities.

5. Tailwind CSS — A utility-first CSS framework that helps you build custom, responsive interfaces directly in your markup.

6. Untitled UI — A UI design system with Figma resources and development components. Free and paid offerings are available.

3. Icon Libraries

Icons help users understand actions, navigate interfaces, and recognize common functions. A consistent icon family can also make an interface feel more polished.

1. Lucide — A clean, consistent library of customizable icons available as SVG files and framework components.

2. Heroicons — A set of interface icons available in outline and solid styles, particularly useful for modern web applications.

3. Tabler Icons — An extensive collection of consistent SVG icons for websites, dashboards, and applications.

4. Phosphor Icons — A flexible icon family with multiple weights, making it easy to maintain a consistent visual style across an interface.

5. Material Symbols — Google's icon collection, with options for different styles and variable icon properties.

6. Bootstrap Icons — An open-source icon library that works with Bootstrap or other frontend frameworks.

7. Iconoir — An open-source icon library with a minimal visual style for interfaces and digital products.

8. SVG Repo — A searchable collection of SVG icons and vectors contributed across a range of categories. Check the license of each asset before using it.

4. Brand Logos

Brand logos are useful when designing client presentations, company directories, partner sections, product comparisons, case studies, or interfaces that display multiple brands.

1. FreemiumAssets — A collection of brand logos available in SVG and PNG formats, with consistent Primary, Black, White, and Outline variants. It's useful when a project needs different logo treatments for light and dark backgrounds, rather than a single logo file.

2. Simple Icons — A collection of SVG icons for popular brands, especially technology companies, developer tools, and digital services.

3. Worldvectorlogo — A searchable directory of vector logos from a wide range of companies and organizations. Review the source and applicable usage terms for each logo.

Tip: When working with brand logos, look for clean vector files and transparent backgrounds. SVG is useful for scalable graphics, while PNG can be convenient for tools that don't support SVG. Always respect brand guidelines and applicable trademark restrictions.

5. Fonts and Typography

Typography affects readability, hierarchy, and the personality of a design. These resources can help you discover typefaces for websites, branding projects, editorial layouts, and interfaces.

1. Google Fonts — A large collection of fonts for web and graphic design, with convenient previews and downloadable files.

2. Fontshare — A font platform featuring typefaces from the Indian Type Foundry, with licensing information for individual fonts.

3. DaFont — A directory of decorative, display, handwritten, and specialty fonts. Check each font's license carefully, especially for commercial work.

4. Font Squirrel — A resource focused on fonts offered for commercial use. Always review the specific license before embedding or distributing a font.

5. The League of Moveable Type — An independent type foundry offering open-source fonts for web design, branding, and other creative projects.

6. Colors and Gradients

Struggling to choose a palette? Color tools make it easier to explore combinations, preview color schemes, and prepare values for your designs.

1. Coolors — Generate color palettes, explore combinations, and save colors for your next project.

2. Adobe Color — Create color themes, explore color harmony rules, and discover palettes for different creative projects.

3. Realtime Colors — Preview colors and typography in a website-style layout before applying them to an actual design.

4. CSS Gradient — Create linear and radial gradients and generate CSS for use in web projects.

5. Happy Hues — Explore color palettes through practical website examples that demonstrate how colors work together in an interface.

7. Stock Photos and Images

Good photography can make a landing page, blog post, portfolio, or presentation more engaging. These libraries are useful starting points when you need images for a visual project.

1. Unsplash — A popular photography library covering lifestyle, architecture, technology, travel, nature, and many other subjects.

2. Pexels — Free stock photos and videos for websites, presentations, social media, and marketing content.

3. Pixabay — A media library featuring photos, illustrations, vectors, and other visual content.

4. Burst by Shopify — A stock photography resource with imagery suited to businesses, products, ecommerce, and marketing.

5. Kaboompics — A photography library featuring lifestyle, interiors, fashion, and editorial-style imagery.

6. Openverse — Search for openly licensed images and other media from multiple sources. Check the individual license and attribution requirements for each result.

8. Illustrations and Vector Assets

Illustrations can make a website feel more distinctive, explain complex ideas, or provide visual interest in onboarding screens and empty states.

1. unDraw — A collection of customizable SVG illustrations that can be adapted to a project's color palette.

2. Storyset — Find and customize illustrations in different styles, with options for animated visuals and downloadable assets.

3. ManyPixels Gallery — Browse illustrations by category and style for landing pages, blog posts, and digital products.

4. DrawKit — An illustration and design asset library featuring free and premium collections.

5. Open Doodles — A set of hand-drawn illustrations for adding a casual, playful touch to websites and presentations.

9. Mockups and Presentation Assets

Mockups help you present a design in context. They're especially useful for portfolios, client presentations, product launches, and case studies.

1. Shots — Create polished visuals from screenshots and digital product designs for portfolios, presentations, and promotional material.

2. Mockup World — A directory of mockups covering devices, stationery, packaging, and other presentation formats. Review the license attached to each download.

3. Mockuuups Studio — Generate device and scene mockups for app screens and product visuals. Free previews or exports may have limitations, so check the current terms.

4. Previewed — Create product visuals using device mockups and presentation templates for apps, websites, and digital products.

10. SVG and Image Optimization Tools

Large images and unnecessary SVG markup can affect website performance. These tools help you optimize files, inspect vectors, and convert images between formats.

1. SVGOMG — A browser-based interface for SVGO that helps remove unnecessary SVG markup and reduce file sizes.

2. Squoosh — Compare image compression settings and inspect the visual difference before exporting an optimized image.

3. SVG Viewer — Preview SVG files and inspect how vector graphics render in the browser.

4. TinyPNG — Compress supported image formats to reduce file sizes for websites and other digital projects.

5. CloudConvert — Convert files between supported formats, including common image formats and other document types.

11. Design Inspiration and Discovery

When you need a fresh direction, design galleries and product reference libraries can help you explore layouts, visual systems, and interface patterns.

1. Dribbble — Discover visual concepts across UI design, branding, illustrations, typography, and digital products.

2. Behance — Explore creative portfolios and detailed case studies covering branding, graphic design, web design, and illustration.

3. Awwwards — Discover websites recognized for their design, creativity, and user experience.

4. Mobbin — Explore screens and UI patterns from real digital products to understand how applications approach common design problems. Access may depend on the current plan.

5. Land-book — Browse landing page designs for ideas on layout, typography, visual hierarchy, and presentation.

Keep This List Handy

A good design workflow isn't about collecting the largest number of tools. It's about knowing where to find the right resource when a project calls for it.

The tools and libraries in this list cover many common needs, from creating interfaces and finding suitable typography to sourcing brand logos, preparing mockups, and optimizing images for the web.

You may only need a handful of these resources regularly, but having reliable options available can save time when the next project comes along.

Did I miss a resource you use regularly? Share it in the comments so other designers can discover it, too.