WSG Newsletter: Finding Clip Art

Issue: November 16, 2000

Do you have a website, brochure, or newsletter that you want to jazz up with an image? Clip art is the answer. There are many excellent websites with images of all sorts and for all occasions, often for free.

This newsletter looks at ways to find images and clip art on the Web and then to use them well in a publication – on the Web or off. Noted along the way are some points about copyright. This is a sequel to October’s newsletter about Homesteading on the Web.

What is Clip Art

Whatis.com defines clip art as "canned artwork designed for use in publications or Web pages. Clip art includes both subject-related illustrations and photos and visual elements such as horizontal lines, bullets, and text separators.” The About.com guide for Web clip art defines clip art as, “Any image, graphic, animation, design and decoration used to create and enhance Web pages. Backgrounds, bullets, lines, navigation buttons, image maps, arrows, titles and any image (moving or static)-- flowers, animals, cars, symbols, etc.-- from the smallest bullet to the full page background is Web clip art.”

Many graphic designers, out of goodness of heart or for the publicity, place their art collections online for people to use free of charge. The catch is, and it’s really only common decency, most of these artists ask that you place a link to their site or give them credit some other way. There are likely some requirements at these graphics sites and it’s a good idea to hunt them down and read them before copying an image from a site. Some sites allow only people working on non-profit projects (personal website, party invitations, family or community newsletters) to take images. Terms of use vary from site to site, so be sure to read them before using any image.

Save It When You Find It

When you find an image on the Web that you want to keep point and click on it with your right mouse button and choose Save Picture As from the pop-up menu. (MAC Users can just hold down their mouse button to see the menu.) Save it to a directory you have set up for images. To make it easier on your memory change the file name to something recognizable to you. [TIG has more about saving images using the Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. See the More-About section for your browser.]

Collections and Private Galleries

Most clip art collections are not solely the original art of the website owner. More often the images have been collected from all over the Web for use in these galleries. If you see a statement that reads, “I think these images are free. E-mail me if you know any of these images has a copyright and I will remove them”, then you’re looking at a clip art collection. Private galleries usually house a smaller number of images and are the work of the individual who owns the site. The website is usually a vehicle to promote that individual’s design talents.

Barry's Clip Art Server is a huge collection of clip art from all over the Web. The most useful aspect, which most other sites lack, is the keyword search. Type in Halloween if you think your web site isn’t scary enough or Christmas if you want to get a head start on that family newsletter you send out once a year. (http://www.barrysclipart.com/Home)

If you need buttons, and bullets, and icons oh my! you need to get to 4YEO.com where you can choose from over 6000 pieces of web clip art. But don’t forget to give credit to the artist when credit is due – much of the art here is in a private gallery. (http://www.4yeo.com)

Scream Design is another private gallery with a smaller, but very nice, collection of web clip art. (http://www.screamdesign.com/freebies.html)

Flaming Text has a directory to buttons and icons, animations, fonts, and tools. It will also help you create your own banners and markers online – no software required. There’s a newsletter too – to keep you in the picture. (http://flamingtext.com)

Music Graphics Galore belongs to a member of Geocities. You will find over two hundred music related graphics categorized by function and described textually. Each description links to a thumbnail image of the graphic. You can find these graphics at http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/Opry/1809/

Do you like clip art that moves? The more flash the better? You’d better get to AnimatedGif.Net. This site claims to have the largest collection of animated gifs on the Net and they just might be right. (http://www.animatedgif.net).

For Canadian content, there is the Canadian Flag Clip Art Gallery (http://canflag.ptbcanadian.com) - get a Canadian flag, a provincial flag, a maple leaf, Canadian currency or maybe a Canadian theme background for your website. There is also The Canadian Clip Art Gallery (http://cdnclipart.iwarp.com). The site is smaller and the navigation doesn't always work but they do have a set of provincial coats of arms to download.

For a Price

Everyone should know of at least a couple of places to buy clip art and stock photography. If you’re ever in a real jam – it’s 2:00 am and your boss or client absolutely cannot do without a picture of a polar bear roller skating across the Gobi desert – it’s good to know there are places to go to get these sorts of things. You also won’t have to worry about copyright infringement.

ArtToday offers a free three-day trial membership to their graphics archives. They claim to be the largest graphics, fonts and sounds resource on the Internet with over a million items. You can search by category or keyword. If you like what you see you can get an annual membership for around $30.00 U.S. (http://www.arttoday.com/)

There are quite a few places to purchase stock photography on the web. Even if you swear you’ll never pay for clip art you should still check out the collections of stunning photographic images at Corbis.com (http://www.corbis.com) and Comstock (http://www.comstock.com/web/). Corbis.com also has a collection of screen savers worth a look and at the low price of $3.95 U.S. you may find yourself giving in.

Search Engines & Subject Directories

The Web has so much clip art that all you really need to do to find it is visit your favourite search engine and do a search on the keywords “clip art” or “graphics” or “photos” combined with your subject – +“clip art” + trees – for example.

Several search engines offer searchable collections of images. AlltheWeb is the largest – it has over 66 million premium images, videos, and sounds. The advanced search lets you select format, colour type, and transparency. Search images for rainforest northwest to get pictures of the Hoh rainforest in the Olympic Peninsula. (http://multimedia.alltheweb.com)

AltaVista also has a substantial collection through alliances with Corbis and Getty images. A search for rainforest northwest brings up some very striking photos. To get the AV Image Search, select images from the left panel (under Multimedia). Enter one or two words to describe what you are looking for and choose the type of images you want (i.e. photos, graphics, black and white etc). Remember, if you want to use one of the images that are retrieved click on More Info just under it, go to the web site it originated from, and check for any copyright information. If you can't find any information you may want to e-mail the webmaster and ask if you can use the image. (http://www.altavista.com)

Try an image-only search at Go.com or a photos-only search at Excite.

Just as you can search any major search engine for clip art, you can also browse subject directories. Find clip art at the Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org)- drill down to Computing | Internet | Web Site Design | Graphics | Clip Art or through Computers | Web Graphics | Free Graphics. At Yahoo! follow the path, Computers and Internet | Graphics | Clip Art.

Webclipart.about.com has a huge collection of clip art classified by subject such as Cartoons, Holidays, Animals etc. Check the A-Z Topic List for an overwhelming list of clip art subjects. Each one of these topics link to a page containing several web sites. You're bound to find something in here, but leave a trail of breadcrumbs – it’s easy to get lost.

Style Considerations

If you’re anything like me, once you start hunting around for graphics you’ll get so absorbed you won’t notice time pass and you will have saved enough images to last a lifetime of publications. But just because we saved them doesn’t mean we should use them. I think we’ve all seen sites that are jam-packed with flashing and bouncing balls, spinning mailboxes, and oodles of pictures of their favourite film stars (if you haven’t I suggest you visit Worst of the Web ). For the sake of aesthetics and your reader’s peace of mind take a look at the following short resources on Web Design Style.

The Web Design Group (http://www.htmlhelp.com/design/ ) has a great section on Design Elements in which they cover the difference between various image formats and how to use them successfully, the issues surrounding the use of colour, and what to keep in mind in terms of accessibility.

WebDesign.about.com is another good resource. The newsletter has had many excellent articles especially Web Design Guidelines and Elements of Effective Web Design. These are solid articles that will help get you up to speed on responsible design.

Created using the logo maker at FlamingText.com

Newsletter by Laryssa Tyson. Laryssa has her own website business. See her home page at http://www.sitebytyson.com/.