1. Dafont.com

Da original font source! dafont.com is one of the biggest and best sources for free, original fonts for Mac, PC and Linux platforms with and excellent font preview system and a very organised, categorised menu of available font styles.

2. My Font’s WhatTheFont

My Font’s WhatTheFont (WTF) is simply amazing! If you ever need to find out the name of a font in a design that has been rasterized or turned into outlines, all you have to do is crop a selection of the font in question, upload image and presto! – WTF will return a selection of fonts which match or come very close to your uploaded image. And… if the suggestions that WTF offers aren’t what you’re looking for, you can always ask the super-responsive font guru’s on WTF’s Forum if you’re still looking for answers.

3. Identifont

Identifont is another excellent online resource for discovering the name of that illusive font. However, as opposed to WTF’s image recognition methods, Identifont allows you to answer a series of questions related to the characteristics of the font you are questioning. Once you answer a few simple questions, Identifont provides a selection of 30 fonts that it considers close matches to the answers you have provided.

4. Typophile

Pixel & Web 2.0 Icons

5. Icon Finder

6. IconsPedia

IconsPedia is another great free resource for quality icons. With an apparent focus on providing sets of icons – it is a great place to find a themed package of cute little characters for your next web project. They also have a ‘Submit’ area where you can upload your own icon creations to share with the rest of the world.

High Resolution Textures

7. Mayang’s Free Textures

Mayang’s Free Textures is an oldy but a goody. I’ve been coming to this site since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Stacked with looooads of hi-res images of just about every surface known to man kind, Mayang’s Free Textures is bound to have some rarities that you can’t find anywhere else. The only cons for the site is the absence of a search tool and it’s bland aesthetics. Unfortunately, being a part of an image driven industry, this site lacks the wow factor of some of the newer kids on the block, therefore, more likely to being teased and bashed after school.

8. Lost and Taken

As discussed above, Lost and Taken is one of the new kids on the block. Packed with some amazing textures, Lost and Taken caters to those looking for something unique and a great place to find that one of a kind photo of the top of an industrial, ninja turtle-esque manhole or scans of an old leather bound book with burnt paper edges once owned by a 15th century Spanish pirate with scurvy.

9. Texture King

Texture King is indeed, the King when it comes to grunge, dirt, plaster, concrete and rust based textures. With a nicely structured interface, carefully organised categories and a growing library of over 870+ images, finding the right textures for your design project is a piece of piss.

10. Texture Lovers

Texture Lovers is so fresh, it still has the smell of a new car with a leather interior. I only discovered this site a couple of weeks ago, after The Klog was showcased in their Texture Inspiration section. Featuring a selection of garden variety textures, Texture Lovers also offers some niche categories including Fabrics, Foliage, Liquids and Paints.

Seamless Pixel & Vector Background Patterns

11. Squidfingers

A distant relative of Salad Fingers – Squidfingers (a.k.a Travis Beckham) is a Graphic Designer from Nashville, USA who has very kindly, created a shite load (158 to date) of really funky, seamless, pixel based patterns for you to use in your next web design project.

12. DINPattern

DINPattern is one of those sites you want to keep to yourself. An amazing source for some of the web’s most unique and exquisite background patterns. Their collection includes floral designs that remind you of those elaborate wallpapered bathrooms from a bygone era, flourishes with a grungy touch, metal mulisha-esque skull designs and a myriad of other themes which could best be described as persian, baroque, gothic, oriental, ugly necktie and disco!

13. Pattern Head

Pattern Head is a blog dedicated to offering ‘repeat patterns’ and freebies. Their range of custom patterns include retro imagery reminiscent of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 60s or more recently, Pixar’s The Incredibles. There is also a fine selection of black & white designs, vintage, eroded and hand-drawn seamless patterns. This site is definitely worth adding to your bookmarks.

14. BgPatterns

I love this site! BgPatterns is a DIY pattern maker where your very own custom patterns are limited only by your imagination. Actually, I lie. You are a tad limited, but only by their set selection of textures and shapes. Still, this is a fantastic concept and a great way for designers to get all creative on a 127 x 127px canvas.

15. Patterrific

Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking… “Another pattern site?” What can I say? The web is crammed full of sites dedicated to the fine art of making and sharing patterns so that your backgrounds look great! Patterrific is, again, another must have bookmark for background lovers. Their range includes some very pretty themes including, wood, cardboard, flower-power, tapestry, candy bar wrapper, polka dots… the list goes on.

16. Background Labs

Last, but not least, Background Labs is a site that lives up to it’s name. Although a little light on content compared to some of the other pattern sites I’ve showcased, Background Labs has some very interesting ‘experimental’ patterns that can only be described as the offspring of a twisted love affair between a mad scientist and his interior designer mistress.

Vector Graphics

17. Vecteezy

Fo’ sheezy my neezy! Conceivably inspired by Snoop Dogg’s patented brand of ghetto talk – Vecteezy is anything but ghetto. In fact, I’d probably describe Vecteezy as being that kid at school who would do anything to become your friend by giving you his lunch money, do your homework and offer you their personal stash of vector art.

18. iStockphoto: Free Vector of the Month

iStockphoto, the fine purveyor of cheap, high resolution photos would have to be one of the most well recognised stock photography libraries in the design community. However, what some of you may not have known (if you’ve been living under a rock) is that they also provide high quality vector illustrations, video and audio at very affordable prices. So why, you ask, is this site being featured in a list of free resources? Simple. Because they also, very graciously, offer their loyal customers a free vector every month for you to download.

19. Vector Valley

A neat little site, Vector Valley is a great source for quality vector graphics. Offering everything from Icons, Symbols, Nature, Patterns (yes, more patterns) and Humans (yes, humans – not the illegal human trafficking kind, just the 2D vector kind).

High Resolution Stock Photography

20. stock.xchng

stock.xchng claims to be ‘the leading free stock photography site’ and IMO, I think they are too. With almost 400,000 images in their library, there is plenty of images (some good, some not so good) to choose from and download freely.

21. Flickr: Creative Commons

Yahoo! owned Flickr is one of, if not the biggest photo sharing sites on the Interweb. It is also a brilliant place to download and use images from a selection of very talented photographers via Creative Commons licenses including, Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works and Share Alike. What’s Creative Commons? Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright. For more info, visit the site.

22. FreePixels

Although a small fry in comparison to the other free stock photography sites out there. FreePixels doesn’t seem to be too phased. Opting to go for quality over quantity, their library of 3,700+ images offer an eclectic mix of imagery ranging from Abstract to Architecture and Landmarks to Landscapes.

23. iStockphoto: Free Photo of the Week

As mentioned earlier, iStockphoto offers free downloadable imagery to those who are ‘in the know’. Alongside their free monthly vector image, they also offer a free weekly photo image from their massive catalogue of high quality stock photos. Make sure to remind yourself to check the site for your weekly gift when you get to work on Monday mornings.

24. Crestock.com: Free Daily Image

If iStockphoto’s free weekly image doesn’t satisfy your insatiable appetite for stock photography, then I suggest you subscribe to Crestock.com’s free daily image RSS feed. Although a little hit and miss on quality and subject matter (there seems to be a lot of images of dodgy Eastern European models siphoning through), occasionally you do come across some real gems that are worthy of archiving. Of course, to some folk, maybe those dodgy Hungarian ‘models’ are the gems you’re looking for.

Tutorial Blogs

25. Vectortuts+

26. Psdtuts+

The bigger brother of Vectortus+, Psdtuts+ offers the same high calibre of tutorials for the grandaddy of digital imaging software, Photoshop. Without a doubt, the most complex imaging program on the market, Psdtuts+ helps both Padewan and Jedi Photoshop users with tips, tricks and techniques to understand the intricacies of digital image manipulation.

27. Vectips

Vectips is a private blog, owned and maintained by Rype (a.k.a Ryan Putnam), a vector art enthusiast. Focusing mainly on Tutorials and Tips & Tricks for Adobe’s Illustrator, the site boasts some great downloadable vector freebies, vector-based design inspiration and a neat self-portrait of Ryan (I presume), as the site’s mascot.

Photoshop Brushes

28. Brusheezy

If Vecteezy was the Snoop Dogg of vector graphics, then Brusheezy, a site dedicated to Photoshop Brushes would have to be Snoop’s cousin, Warren G. Chock full of .abr files that are individually moderated by real people, expect nothing but the best from Brusheezy’s mass collection of high quality Photoshop brushes.

29. PS Brushes

PS Brushes is another one of my favourite resources for brushes. Recently upgraded with a new interface, PS Brushes still offers the same quality .abr’s and continue to offer a handy preview image (a screenshot of the Brush Palette from Photoshop) showing you what the brushes look like before you download, making it really easy to find the effect you’re looking for.

30. My Photoshop Brushes

Although their name would suggest that they only cater for PS Brushes, My Photoshop Brushes (MPB) is handy depot for all kinds of PS effects, with a vast selection of Brushes, Shapes, Gradients, Styles and Patterns, MPB is very worthy of a Cmd+D (Ctrl+D).

31. Qbrushes

Another great spot to find some quality brushes, Qbrushes offers a well laid out gallery for you to peruse their extensive collection. They even have a 5-star voting system, making it quicker and easier to sort through the good and bad user-submitted brushes.

Vector Based Logos

32. Brands of the World

Having just been purchased by graphics.com and given a facelift, Best Brands of the World (BBOTW) is without a doubt one of the must-have’s for your bookmarks. Loaded with practically every famous logo ever created (over 160,000 logos to date), BBOTW really is the only place you need to go to when you’re looking for a crisp vector logo to replace the low res .gif your client supplied you with. In fact, the site is so good, even Armin from Brand New rates it as one of the best sites on the web for graphic designers.

33. LogoZu

Okay, so if you struggle to find the logo you’re looking for on Best Brands of the World, you may have some luck with LogZu. Although not as rich with content as BBOTW, LogoZu has delivered on the odd occasion. Definitely worth having as a backup.

Conclusion

That concludes the list of 33 of my favourite, free Graphic Design resources. I hope some of these sites prove useful, if you didn’t already know about them. And if you did already know about them, and know of some more comparable sites that are worth sharing. Don’t be shy… Let us know about ‘em.