Open Source Design, The Studio
Free design resources you can actually use.
Photos, illustrations, icons, fonts, UI kits, palettes, patterns, mockups, 3D assets, the world's great collections, and the open source tools to wield them: every major free design library on Earth, gathered on one page. One simple test got a resource here: you can download it and build with it, and its card tells you the real license in plain words.
Start with the big four Browse by category › Free videos, next door ›Start here: the big four
The shelves everyone reaches for first
If this page had only four links, it would be these: the photo library the world runs on, the friendliest open illustration library, the world's type shelf, and the open source design tool we would hand a beginner on day one. Each picture below is a taste of what you will find there.
Un
Unsplash
The biggest free photo library on Earth: millions of high resolution photos from working photographers, searchable by mood, subject and color, and the first stop for almost every designer alive.
Unsplash License: free for personal and commercial use, no credit needed. Two fences: do not resell the photos as-is, and do not build a competing stock library out of them.
Get free resources ›
uD
unDraw
Open source illustrations for everything: thousands of flat, friendly SVG and PNG scenes you can recolor to your brand in one click, drawn by Katerina Limpitsouni and given away for good.
unDraw license: free for personal and commercial use, no credit needed. Just do not resell or redistribute the illustrations themselves as a library.
Get free resources ›
Gf
Google Fonts
The world's type shelf: more than 1,700 font families, every one of them open source, with specimens, pairings and one line embeds for the web. If a font is famous and free, it lives here.
SIL Open Font License (a few under Apache): use anywhere, embed anywhere, even sell products set in them. You just cannot sell the font files themselves.
Get free resources ›
Pe
Penpot
The open source design tool: a complete design and prototyping app that runs in the browser, with shared libraries, design tokens and developer handoff, built in the open by its community. Our pick for design files that should outlive any subscription.
Open source (MPL 2.0): free forever, and you can self host it. The hosted version is free for teams too, and its libraries and templates are shared openly inside the app.
Get free resources ›Stock photos
Photos, free to use for real
Every library here lets you download full resolution photos and use them in real projects, commercial ones included. The shared fence is small: build photos into your work, but do not resell them raw or rebuild a rival stock library out of them. Unsplash leads the featured shelf above; these are its peers.
Pexels
Unsplash's great rival: a huge, carefully curated library of free photos (and videos), strong on people, work, food and cities, with a tidy license and a good API.
Pexels License: free for personal and commercial use, no credit needed. Do not resell unaltered copies as stock.
Visit Pexels ›
Pixabay
The depth chart: millions of photos plus illustrations, vectors, music and sound effects in one place, contributed by a giant community since 2010.
Pixabay Content License: free for commercial use, no credit needed. Do not resell content as-is, and a photo does not transfer the trademark or likeness rights of anything in it.
Visit Pixabay ›
Openverse
WordPress's search engine for openly licensed media: it indexes hundreds of millions of Creative Commons and public domain images from across the web, each with its license and credit line attached.
Every result carries its own CC or public domain license, shown before you download. Follow the one on the image you pick; most ask only for credit.
Visit Openverse ›
StockSnap
A smaller, high quality photo library where everything is CC0: fresh photos added weekly, strong on landscapes, tech and everyday life.
CC0: public domain in practice. Use for anything, no credit needed, no permission, ever.
Visit StockSnap ›
Burst
Shopify's free photo library, shot for online sellers: products, shops, cafes, makers and the people who run small businesses. It now lives inside Shopify's stock photos.
Free for personal and commercial use, no credit needed. Made for building stores and brands; do not resell the photos as a library.
Visit Burst ›
Wikimedia Commons
The media vault behind Wikipedia: well over 100 million files, including public domain masterpieces, space imagery, museum scans and two centuries of photography. The deepest free archive there is.
Each file page states its license (public domain, CC BY or CC BY-SA) with the credit line spelled out. The terms travel with the file, so check the one you take.
Visit Wikimedia Commons ›Illustrations
Illustrations and characters
Flat scenes, friendly people and whole illustration systems, free to drop into sites, decks and apps. unDraw leads the featured shelf above; these are the other great shelves, including two CC0 people libraries you can take apart and rebuild.
Open Peeps
A hand drawn library of diverse people you can mix and match: bodies, clothes, hairstyles and poses as separate pieces, by artist Pablo Stanley.
CC0: completely free for personal and commercial use, no credit needed.
Visit Open Peeps ›
Humaaans
Customizable people illustrations for product pages and decks: swap clothes, colors and poses, or take the whole scenes. Also by Pablo Stanley, also given away.
CC0: free for anything, personal or commercial, no credit needed.
Visit Humaaans ›
Storyset
Polished illustrations in several consistent styles, customizable right in the browser (colors, backgrounds, layers) before you download SVG or PNG, with animation ready versions too.
Free tier: free to use with a visible credit line to Storyset. Paid plans remove the credit requirement.
Visit Storyset ›
DrawKit
Beautiful vector illustration sets and icons in several house styles, from hand drawn to flat corporate, with a generous free shelf that keeps growing.
The free sets are free for personal and commercial use. Premium sets are paid, and each set's page states its terms.
Visit DrawKit ›
Blush
A playful illustration library from many independent artists, with an editor that remixes characters, colors and scenes, plus plugins for the big design tools.
Free tier: a real starter library, free for personal and commercial projects. The full collection is paid; each collection page shows its terms.
Visit Blush ›Icons
Icons by the thousand
Four complete icon systems under open licenses, the giant aggregator that unifies them all, and the open emoji libraries. Every set here can ship in a commercial product.
Heroicons
The Tailwind team's icon set: 300 plus clean outline and solid icons drawn on one consistent grid, ready as SVG, React and Vue components.
MIT license: free for any use, commercial included, no credit needed.
Visit Heroicons ›
Lucide
The community fork of Feather, now over 1,500 icons and still growing: consistent, friendly line icons for apps and sites, in every framework format there is.
ISC license (MIT style): free for any use, no credit needed.
Visit Lucide ›
Feather Icons
The minimalist classic: a small set of perfectly simple line icons (arrows, cameras, hearts, sliders) that taught a generation of apps how icons should feel.
MIT license: free for any use, commercial included, no credit needed.
Visit Feather Icons ›
Tabler Icons
The completist's set: more than 5,000 free outline icons in one crisp, consistent style, searchable and downloadable as SVG, PNG or webfont.
MIT license: free for any use, no credit needed.
Visit Tabler Icons ›
Iconify
The icon universe in one search: over 200,000 icons from 200 plus open source sets, unified into one API and one family of components for every framework.
Every set keeps its own open license (mostly MIT, Apache or CC BY), named on its page in Iconify. The Iconify code itself is free and open source.
Visit Iconify ›
SVG Repo
Over 500,000 free SVG icons and vectors in one searchable warehouse, handy when you need one odd icon fast: a tractor, a test tube, a taco.
Licenses are labeled on every icon: much is public domain or CC0, some ask for credit, a few are CC BY. Filter by license and follow the one shown.
Visit SVG Repo ›
OpenMoji
The open source emoji library: 4,000 plus emoji drawn by design students and teachers, free as SVG and PNG in color and outline, including ones Unicode forgot.
CC BY-SA 4.0: free to use with credit, and published work built on them stays open under the same license.
Visit OpenMoji ›
Twemoji
Twitter's emoji set, open sourced and now community maintained: the familiar colorful faces and symbols, free for apps, games, sites and print.
Graphics are CC BY 4.0 (credit the Twemoji project); the code is MIT. Free for commercial use with that credit line.
Visit Twemoji ›Fonts
Fonts and type
Google Fonts leads the featured shelf above. These three shelves complete the type cabinet: the developer friendly packager, the indie foundry, and the personal use treasure box.
Fontsource
Open fonts packaged for developers: install any Google Font or other open font with npm or a CDN link, self host it and subset it, no third party tracking required.
Every font keeps its own open license (SIL OFL or Apache), shown on its page. Free for commercial use.
Visit Fontsource ›
Open Foundry
A curated platform for open source typefaces from independent designers: characterful display fonts you will not find in the big catalogs, each one free to use.
Fonts are open source, most under the SIL Open Font License; each typeface page states its license. Free for commercial work.
Visit Open Foundry ›
Use & Modify
A hand picked collection of indie fonts with personality, free for personal projects: zines, posters, mixtapes, your band's first flyer.
Free for personal use; licenses vary by font and some allow commercial work too. Each font page states its terms, so check before a client job.
Visit Use & Modify ›UI kits and design systems
UI kits and design systems
Whole interfaces, free: community shared design files (Penpot's shared libraries live inside the featured tool above, and Figma's community is below), plus three famous open design systems from IBM and two governments, each one a free masterclass in how interfaces should work.
Figma Community
Thousands of free UI kits, wireframe kits, icon sets, mockups and design files shared by their makers, ready to duplicate into your own Figma account.
Free to download and remix; each file carries its maker's license, most of them free with credit. The license sits on every file page: read it before shipping.
Visit Figma Community ›
US Web Design System
The design system of the United States government: accessible components, patterns, tokens and design kits, built for public services and free to absolutely everyone.
Public domain (released under CC0): use it for anything, government or not, no credit needed.
Visit US Web Design System ›
Carbon Design System
IBM's open design system: a huge, battle tested component library for data heavy products, with design kits, code, charts and accessibility guidance.
Apache 2.0: free for any use, commercial included, with the license kept in your notices.
Visit Carbon Design System ›
GOV.UK Design System
The UK government's famously clear design system: components and patterns proven by millions of citizens, with the best plain language design writing anywhere.
Open source and free to use (code under MIT, content under the Open Government Licence). Built for public services, free for anyone to reuse and learn from.
Visit GOV.UK Design System ›Color
Color, handled
Palettes are ideas, and ideas are free: these three tools help you pick colors that actually work together, from a tuned interface palette to palettes demonstrated on real page designs.
Open Color
A designer's palette built for interfaces: 13 hues in 10 balanced shades each, tuned so any combination looks deliberate. Copy the hex codes or grab the files for your design tool.
MIT license: free for any use, no credit needed.
Visit Open Color ›
Happy Hues
Curated palettes shown in context: each one is applied to a real page design, so you can see exactly which color plays which role before you commit.
Free to use the palettes in your own projects, personal and commercial.
Visit Happy Hues ›
Coolors
The beloved palette generator: press space, get a palette, lock the keepers, export anywhere. The free tier is generous; the paid tier adds big libraries and team tools.
Free tier: generate and use palettes in your projects free. Palettes you make are yours to use; paid plans unlock extras.
Visit Coolors ›Patterns and textures
Patterns, backgrounds and textures
The finishing layer: tileable SVG patterns, customizable backgrounds, organic shape generators and transparent textures that sit over any color.
Hero Patterns
Steve Schoger's collection of crisp SVG background patterns: subtle, tileable, one click to copy the CSS, and endlessly recolorable.
Free for personal and commercial projects; a credit is appreciated but not required.
Visit Hero Patterns ›
SVG Backgrounds
Customizable SVG backgrounds and patterns you tune in the browser (colors, shapes, density) and export as tiny files or pure CSS.
Free designs ask for a credit line back to SVG Backgrounds; a paid license removes the credit requirement.
Visit SVG Backgrounds ›
Haikei
A generator for the organic shapes modern sites love: waves, blobs, gradients and grainy textures, exported as SVG or PNG in seconds.
Generous free tier for your projects; the full app, with every generator, is a one time purchase.
Visit Haikei ›
Transparent Textures
Tileable transparent textures (paper, fabric, noise, concrete) that sit over any color: the Subtle Patterns tradition, alive and free.
CC BY 3.0: free for personal and commercial use, with a credit to the pattern's maker.
Visit Transparent Textures ›Mockups
Mockups, honestly labeled
Mockups are the one corner of design where truly open licenses are rare, so this shelf is labeled extra carefully: real free tiers and free PSD libraries, with the paid edges stated on every card.
Smartmockups
The friendly mockup generator, now inside Canva: drop a screenshot into phones, laptops, shirts and billboards, and export a clean presentation shot in seconds.
Free tier: a solid set of mockups, free to use in personal and commercial projects. Premium mockups carry Canva's paid terms, so check the badge on the one you export.
Visit Smartmockups ›
Mr. Mockup
High quality free PSD mockups: devices, packaging, apparel and print, shot and lit like a studio, with new freebies added regularly.
The free mockups are free for personal and commercial projects; each download page carries the license details, and extended licenses exist for resale work.
Visit Mr. Mockup ›
GraphicBurger
A long running freebie kitchen for designers: tasty PSD mockups (signs, cans, books, devices) plus textures and UI kits, all free to download.
Free resources are free for personal and commercial use, credit appreciated. Check the license note on each freebie: a few items exclude resale or redistribution.
Visit GraphicBurger ›3D and Blender assets
3D models, HDRIs and textures
For the third dimension: one library that gives everything away under CC0, and the big in Blender marketplace with a large free shelf.
Poly Haven
The 3D artist's treasure chest: over a thousand HDRIs, photoreal textures and 3D models, shot and scanned by the team and funded by patrons instead of paywalls.
CC0: everything is public domain in practice. Use for anything, no credit needed (they appreciate it).
Visit Poly Haven ›
BlenderKit
A giant asset library that lives inside Blender: models, materials, HDR scenes and full scenes, searchable from the add on, with a large free shelf beside the full library.
Free tier: thousands of assets, free under BlenderKit's royalty free license (use them in your renders; do not redistribute the files themselves). Every asset page shows its license, and some are CC0.
Visit BlenderKit ›Open collections
Museums and space: the open collections
The greatest free design resources of all might be the world's memory, given away: two museum giants releasing their collections under CC0, and the space agency whose imagery belongs to the public by law.
The Met Open Access
The Metropolitan Museum gave its public domain collection to everyone: more than 400,000 artworks in high resolution, the paintings you grew up seeing in books, free to download.
CC0 for Open Access images: use for anything, no credit needed. Works still under copyright are marked and excluded.
Visit The Met Open Access ›
Smithsonian Open Access
America's attic, opened: millions of images and thousands of 3D objects from 19 museums and archives, from Apollo hardware to presidential portraits, free to download and remix.
CC0 for Open Access items: use for anything, no credit needed. Items without the CC0 mark keep their stated terms.
Visit Smithsonian Open Access ›
NASA Image Library
Every mission, searchable: Earth from orbit, nebulae, rocket launches, astronauts at work. The most awe per megabyte of any library on this page.
Public domain: free to use, including commercially. Two cautions: the NASA logo itself is restricted, and an astronaut's likeness cannot be used to sell products.
Visit NASA Image Library ›Open source tools
The open source design tools
The resources above are the supplies; these are the workbench. Four complete, professional, free forever applications, the same spirit as the open movies next door: Penpot leads the featured shelf up top, and Blender, which made those films, closes the bench.
Inkscape
The free vector illustrator: a real professional SVG editor for logos, icons and illustration, with a passionate community and decades of development behind it.
Free and open source (GPL): download it, use it commercially, share it. The artwork you make is entirely yours.
Visit Inkscape ›
GIMP
The free Photoshop alternative: photo retouching, compositing and painting with layers, masks and a universe of plugins, on every platform.
Free and open source (GPL): free for any use, including paid client work. Your images stay yours.
Visit GIMP ›
Krita
The digital painting studio built by artists: beloved for illustration, comics and concept art, with superb brushes and animation tools built in.
Free and open source (GPL): free for any use, commercial included. What you paint is yours.
Visit Krita ›
Blender
The whole 3D pipeline in one free app: modeling, sculpting, animation, rendering and video editing. The open films on our OS Video page were made with it.
Free and open source (GPL): free for any use, forever. Films and renders you make are entirely yours.
Visit Blender ›The licenses, in plain words
What you can actually do
CC0: public domain
The maker gave the work to everyone, completely. Use it for anything, no credit needed, no permission, ever. StockSnap, Open Peeps, Poly Haven and the museum collections live here.
CC BY: free with credit
Use it, remix it, sell work made with it. The one ask: name the maker. unDraw, Twemoji and Transparent Textures live here. A good credit line is four parts: the maker's name, the work's title, where you got it, and the license, linked when you can.
CC BY-SA: free, stays free
Same freedoms as CC BY, one extra rule: work you publish built on it carries the same open license, so the gift keeps traveling. OpenMoji lives here.
MIT, ISC, Apache, OFL
The software world's open licenses, covering the icon sets, the design systems and nearly every font on this page. Use them in anything, commercial products included; keep the license notice with the files.
Free library licenses
Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay write their own friendly licenses: free for personal and commercial use, no credit needed. The shared fence: do not resell the raw files as a library of your own.
Free tier, labeled
A few great shelves are freemium: a real free tier beside a paid library. Their cards say so in plain words, because free to start is a fine thing and a different thing from free forever.
One honest line covers almost everything on this page: build these resources into your own work as much as you like, and do not resell the raw files themselves as a stock library. That is the whole fence. Everything inside it is yours.
Why this page exists
Free to look at is not free to use.
The internet is full of beautiful design you may not touch: inspiration boards, award sites and social feeds are for looking, and the work on them belongs to its makers. This page is the opposite shelf. Everything here passed the same test as our Free Videos page: you can download it, keep it, and build real work with it, and every card states the real terms before you click. Pair it with the open source tools at the bottom and a person with zero budget has a complete design studio: photos from Unsplash, illustrations from unDraw, icons from Lucide, type from Google Fonts, laid out in Penpot, finished in Krita. That is the point of open source design: the tools and the materials stopped being the expensive part. The ideas are yours.
Show us what you made
Designed something with these?
A site, a poster, a whole brand built from free shelves: bring it to the Discord. The best ones get featured, and the makers get credited by name, always. Found a great free library we missed? Bring that too, and we will add it with its license in plain words.
Show it in the Discord Browse OS VideoTake the resources. Make the thing.
Start with one photo, one illustration set, one font and one afternoon. That is a portfolio piece waiting to happen, and it costs exactly nothing.
Back to the photos Get free videos too