Lesson: Resources for Designs

You want to whip up a new theme for Strayhorn? Where do you go for images? Well, the best place is your own work. I recently created an entire series of templates based on photographs of a floral bouquet I received from my bosses.

There are a lot of stock photo resources on the web, but you must be very careful to read their terms of use. The majority of them allow you to download images for use on your OWN site as long as you don’t release your designs to the public for free or for hire. You CAN also use the designs to create a unique design for someone else. It’s the “redistribution” of the images in templates that is forbidden. So before you download any images from any image repository, be sure you read the “Terms of Use” or “FAQs” because normally the site will clearly spell out for you what you can and cannot do with the images, and quite a number of them expressly prohibit the “redistribution” of the images for sale or for free, to others, without the web master’s consent. This usually pours cold water on any plans to use the images to create templates for release to the public.

So where can you get some nice, royalty-free, ready to use images? Here are some places I recommend:

Images

• Stock Exchange … their Terms of Use specifically indicate that you may use the images to create design templates.
• My Floral Photographs at jonimueller.com
• Owen Winkler’s Kubrickr uses Flickr to find copyright-friendly images that are swapped into your Kubrick header. *Added by moderator.

Seamless/Tiled Backgrounds

• AlesiaKaye
• Clickfire Seamless Tiles and Backgrounds
• Kaliber 10K … background provided by various graphic designers. Read the terms of use for each one; the terms of use are not the same for all the graphics.
• Kelta Web Concepts … free for use on a personal or commercial site.
• Silk Purse Graphics … copyright Roger Hamstra, but available for use by anyone for any purpose.
• Tony’s Backgrounds. Free for personal use; otherwise, ask for permission to release in a template set.
• Webgrounds … can be used for personal sites and template designs, but you must give a link back.
• SquidFingers … the most elegant designs ever, IMHO. He doesn’t ask for much, a link back would be appreciated.