Clip art is a process of cutting an image from the printed paper or object and paste it on another object. In digital world, clip arts are graphical art generally available in white or transparent background. This helps to paste the art image on another image without any problem. Clip art images became very popular for using in illustrations with applications like Adobe Illustrator. If you want to use clip art images on your document or website, here are the top 10 sites to download free clip art images.
Clip Arts, Icons and Images
Clip art images can be in bitmap (JPEG, PNG or GIF) or in scalable vector graphics (SVG) format. Since raster graphic formats like PNG and JPEG images can create problems when you want to scale up the size, it is recommended to use SVG format. You can easily increase the size vector graphics images without losing the quality. If you download white background clip arts images, then you can only use them with another white background image or remove the background using tools like Photoshop or Snagit. Therefore, either use SVG format or transparent PNG/GIF format especially when you want to paste the clip art images in Word documents or on other images.
Other consideration is that currently clip arts and icons are used interchangeably as both are available in SVG format. Since small icon sets are available in SVG format, they are also referred as clip art images. For example, earlier days you can easily insert clip art images in Microsoft Office documents from in-built library. Later, Microsoft discontinued clip arts and introduced icons library which are purely line icon sets in SVG format.
- You can go to “Insert” menu in any Office apps like Word, PowerPoint or Excel and click “Icons” button.
- This will open icons library and show as a pop-up where you can search and insert any of your favorite icons.
- You can increase or reduce the size, change the colors and apply text effects to fit the icons in your document.
- It is also possible to download the image by right clicking on it and selecting save as picture option. While downloading you can choose the file format as SVG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP or PDF.
This works perfectly in Microsoft 365 for Mac also with an only difference that the icon library will show in the sidebar instead of a pop-up window.
If you really want to insert small icons on your Office documents, then do not look for downloading clip art images from third-party websites. Simply, use the default icons library in Microsoft 365 subscription to save your time.
Top 10 Sites to Download Free Clip Art Images
When you want to use clip art images on your websites and other projects, the easy way is to download the images from online. There are hundreds of websites available online offering royalty free clip art image collections. Here we will list down top 10 sites to download free clip art images. You can download the images in BMP, PNG, JPG, AI, EPS, PDF or SVG format and upload on your website or simply paste in your documents.
1. Openclipart.org
This is one of the dedicated and the largest clip art image collections on the web. Openclipart was launched in 2004 and hosts more than 150K clip art images. Images are available under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Public Domain license and you can use the images on any personal or commercial projects without any attribution. You can use the search box or browse using tags to find your favorite clip art images. All the images are available in SVG and PNG format with transparent background.
2. 1010clipart.com
If you want to find free and high-resolution clip art images, then 1010ClipArt is the place for you. You can search or browse through categories to find images in SVG, PNG, EPS, AI and PSD formats. As per their license, you can use the images freely on personal and commercial projects without attribution.
3. Pixabay.com
Pixabay is one of the largest image hosting sites on the internet offering +2.5 million free stock images. Many users think pixabay is only for downloading raster images in PNG or JPEG format. However, you can enter the keyword in search box and select vector graphics option to filter all clip art images. While downloading, you have option to get the image in PNG or SVG format to make sure the image has transparent background.
4. Clipproject.info
Similar to Openclipart, Clipproject.info is a dedicated website for downloading free clip arts. However, the license terms are stringent that you can only use the images for non-commercial usage. In addition, you need to provide an attribution when using images on your project by linking back to the site. If you do not want to provide attribution or wanted to use on commercial website, then this is not the site for you to download clip art images. You can view the clip art images under different groups to easily browse through or use the search box to find the relevant images.
5. Freepik.com
Freepik is similar to pixabay where you can filter vector images to find your clip arts. Though you can use the images for commercial and personal purposes, most of them need an attribution by linking back to their site. You can easily filter images by searching and further filter using tags from the top navigation.
6. All-free-download.com
Aall-free-download.com is a free stock image website offers vectors, fonts, images, icons, PSDs, etc. Choose vectors option and search your keywords to filter relevant clip art images. Most of the images are available in high-resolution and downloadable in AI/EPS/JPG formats. Though you can use the images on both personal and commercial purposes, you need to provide an attribution back to their site.
7. Vector.me
Unlike other websites, vector.me is a community based website. The images are uploaded either by users or extracted by their crawler from other public domain websites. This means the license term can change for each image, hence make sure to check the license showing below the image before you download. Most of the images we have checked are available free for personal and commercial usage. The site also offers easy to navigate interface with categories and search box for you to browse through almost 80K images in AI, EPS and SVG formats.
8. Freevectors.net
This is similar to vector.me and the images are either uploaded by users or created by their own team. Most of the images are free for personal and commercial use without any attribution. However, you need to check the readme.txt file in the downloaded zip file to find the relevant terms. The zip download includes clip art image in SVG, PNG and PDF format. You can browse through the clip art images under different categories or use the search box to find you favorite image.
9. Vecteezy.com
Vecteezy offers free photos, vectors and videos for personal and commercial usage. However, the license needs attribution to their site. you can select “Vectors” and use the search box to find clip art images. The site will ask you to register for a free account while downloading images. You can ignore the prompt and continue to download the image as a ZIP file which contains high-resolution JPG, SVG, EPS and PDF formats.
10. Clipart-library.com
This is another cool site to download large collections of free clip art images. You can navigate through categories and download favorite images for free. Each image will also show related and popular images helps you to quickly find attractive clip arts. Images are available for download as a single file in GIF, PNG or JPG format and not in a ZIP file containing multiple formats. The only problem is a license that you are allowed to use the images freely for personal purposes like in your personal site or documents and can’t use on commercial projects.
Final Remarks
Though clip arts are overshadowed by icons, you can still find large number of sites offering free downloads. The best option is to use Openclipart.org with no licensing restrictions on personal and commercial usage. You can also try packaged websites like pixabay where you can get completely free vector clip arts, photos, videos and music in a single platform.
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