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Clip Art and IconsAs the Internet and electronic publishers have exploded, so has the need for clip art and graphics. What is clip art? Clip art is basically pictures, drawings, and graphics that can used in a variety of electronic formats - to decorate your website or blog, for use in a presentation, in desktop publishing newsletters, for inclusion in a Word document, for use in digital media like DVD or CD projects, etc. Let's say you need some artwork that includes images of horses. You would look for some horse clip art and find some etchings, photos, or computer graphics, grab the ones you want for your book report or blog, and drop them into your project. Stock photos are usually something different from clip art - they often have different licensing terms and prices compared to clip art, which is often very cheap or free.
Best CLip Art WebsitesThere are a number of websites that offer free or cheap downloads on clip art. Let's start with ClipArt.com. This site is not a free clip art download site - it is run by subscription fees. A 1 year subscription costs $170, while a 1 week verson costs just $18. What do you get for this fee? Access to a huge library of clip art objects including over 3 million clipart images, almost 2 million web graphics (buttons, arrows, etc.), 800K illustrations, and over 100k photos and fonts and sounds. For example, we searched for "fire engine" and found almost 500 matches for images and graphics of fire engines -- more than enough to find a few examples you like for your project or website. The sample images that you can preview are marked with a watermark, and you cannot click to download them unless you are a member. Most images are available is many formats, like GIF, EPS, PNG, JPG, and WMF. All things considered, they have a great selection of artwork here, and whether you have a quick project that needs some images for $18 or if you use it regularly as your main source of graphic art for $170 a year, it's a good deal.Next, try BarrysClipart.com. The offer free clip art downloads in a variety of topics -- agriculture, animals, cartoons, computer clip art, education, email, entertainment, holiday clip art, landscape, kids, medical, music, money, nature clip art, people, outdoors, etc. We like them as a free clip art download site. The selection is not as big as Clipart.com, but for free, it is a pretty good deal. They have a variety of links to the other components of their parent company, like Photos.com for stock photography, which is a pay site. Microsoft also offers a free clipart collection for their MS Office products. Search for "Microsoft clip art" where you can find over 150,000 free clip art images and sounds to use in your documents and presentations. From their site, you can browse and select the graphics you want, which are then added to a download basket for you to download when you are ready. We liked their collection, the ease of use of their catalog and download function, and the price -- free. Be sure to check out this site before you pay for something you may not need. Clip Art CDs and DVD collectionsOffline, you can also buy huge royalty free clip art collections on CD or DVD. Check out any computer or software retailer. Let's start with Amazon.com. Some of their most popular clipart collections include:
Free Icons - Download IconsAnother popular graphic type is the icon. Icons can be used for a variety of purposes, from menus within programs to avatars to buttons on a webpage. Check out IconBazaar.com to get started. They offer all kinds of free icon downloads in categories like: backgrounds, animated, animal icons, computer, food, maps, stars, objects, signs, religious, cars, etc. If you are looking for fancier, professional looking icons for Windows XP or Vista, check out Vista Icons. These are not free icon download, you have to pay for them, but if you are in ther professional graphic artist business, it is a small price to pay. The whole collection costs $249, or you can buy specific categories for $65-$140. They cover categories like hotels, telecom, medical icons, real estate, retail, banking -- all clearly aimed at the professional market. They do offer some free icon downloads for you to sample - try it, and see if you like them. Vector icons are available at $40 each, and custom icons are also available.
Do you have a quality site or product that belongs in this guide? We are always happy to evaluate or review new products and websites. Feel free to contact us at the email address below and let us know about you. If you have a demo product you'd like us to look at, please contact us before sending anything. Thank you.
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