Here are my favorite design resources:
Sign up with them and every Monday they have freebies for their members. They have great design stuff at good prices and they won't bother you with constant advertising emails. Also, friend them on Facebook, their articles are interesting and amusing.
​
A safe place to download free fonts from. Some sites that offer free fonts are questionable. Be careful so your computer doesn't catch anything. Also, not all fonts that are floating around there for "free" are legal to use. This is not an issue when you just design for fun, but when you're designing for money you want to make sure it's legal. All fonts that come through Fontsquirrel have a disclaimer page that shows you exactly how you can use the font and generally they are okay for commercial use.
​
There are a lot of stock photo companies, but my personal favorite is Bigstock. A lot of stock websites offer incredible deals, like $1 per image, but the problem is that they require a monthly subscription. Bigstock let's you buy credits, so you don't have to commit to anything. However, they try to sell you a monthly subscription and often re-route you to the "Subscription" link. To buy credits go on "See Plans & Pricing" and then scroll down to "See all plans". Click on that and then you'll see the credits. A few times a year they offer 40% off on credits.
​
This website is almost too good to be true, but it's for real. They offer a ton of public domain pictures completely free and for commercial use. When you sign up with them you can download the pictures in different sizes, though I would recommend to always download the largest size since it's free anyways. The only drawback is that not all pictures have a high enough resolution for printing, so if you're planning on using a picture from pixabay for printing first make sure it will work. For use on websites or for social media ads these pictures are always perfect.
​
Free stock photos that are really different from what's usually out there.
​
More free images that can be used for commercial projects
​
Free font heaven. As always, if you're using any free font for a real, paying project read the license attachment that comes with it when you download the font. Not all free fonts are actually free for commercial use.
​
For personal use, like your student project you pay a nominal fee. Commercial use licenses start at $75
​
Mockups
​
Another one of my favorite sites that offer free resources. Take a look at the fonts Sitka and Bushcraft Lauren, Awesawez, and Arabella. Click on the link Freebies, they have a lot of free stuff, like mock-ups, textures and patterns
​
Similar to PixelBuddha
​
This is mockup heaven. Lots of free stuff and low cost deals.
​
Go to the link Free Deals and find lots of useful stuff. I recommend 8 Business Card Mockups. Also, the font Lev Black Distressed is really cool.
​
They are similar to Creative Market and they have Freebie Friday. Like them on Facebook and they'll let you know what's free every week. They also offer great design bundles and fonts for around $30.
​
All mockups for $5 each. No monthly subscription, just buy individually as you need.
​
​
Photoshop Tutorials by Phlearn, Retouching 101-301
​
​
​
More free images and mockups
​
Free and reasonably priced graphic resources
​
​
​