Do you want to build a…website? As you are beginning the process of brainstorming how your brand will translate to the web, you might be in need of some additional design elements. Purchasing these elements can get expensive, or you may lack the know-how to create them yourself. Never fear, we have a handy guide of sources for great free website design elements!

BACKGROUNDS

Whether a subtle stripe or something more fancy, there are great sources for free, tiled backgrounds that you can use for commercial projects. For stripes, nothing beats STRIPE GENERATOR. It's fast, easy, and free to create any size, color, or direction of seamless, striped background. The file download is very small, so it will load extra quickly into your Showit site. Another source of great, free backgrounds is SUBTLE PATTERNS. Go there and get lost for about an hour checking out their amazing free subtle, tiled background designs for your site.

FONTS

Fonts can get expensive to purchase, and if you are having them converted for Showit, you need to make SURE you have permission to embed them into your site. Never fear, FONT SQUIRREL is here! Font squirrel offers loads of free fonts with commercial-use licenses. This means that you can use them, embed them, convert them…the license is broad, so go to town! From Serif to Retro to Contemporary to Calligraphic, you're sure to find something that will suit your needs without breaking the bank. If you're looking for something a little more unique, try PAINT FONT. This site allows you to print, fill out, scan, and submit your font, then generates a .ttf or .otf font of your handwriting. It also does NOT make the font readily available to others, so it will be all your own. If you're looking to create a font that might actually make you a little bit of cash, try FONT PANDA. Font Panda will make your font readily available to others, and people purchasing for commercial uses have to pay $25. Font Panda gives you 50% of the proceeds from your font. Win-win! Creating your own font can take some trial and error, but the results can be something truly unique for your website!

GRAPHICS

Navigating the sea of sites offering “free” design elements can be super time-consuming. So many of them aren't really free, and there are a lot of spam sites that have a lot of junk. From textures to icons to Photoshop brushes, DESIGNM.AG is a great resource. Check out their freebies section for lots of great downloads. If you want a gamut of textures and unique elements, try CG TEXTURES. Their site is divided into categories, and everything is free to download, even some seamless patterns. You are required to sign up, but in my experience, they don't spam like other companies.

There are other great sources that offer cheap or free design elements with commercial rights that you can use for your business, so keep your eyes peeled! What great sources have you come across?

Jefferson Todd Pals

JT is the Designer Community Lead at Showit Inc., a Gilbert, AZ based software company creating easy to use tools for custom website design. He was a professional wedding photographer before beginning his design career using Showit software. JT is married to the love of his life Ashley and they currently share their household with two mostly well behaved golden retrievers, Napa and Sonoma.