15 ms·

Show HN: Free and open-source illustrations for your projects

572 points by murtaza_alexa 5y ago

andjd 5y ago
Anyone else find it odd that the colors are (somewhat) customizable, but the skin tones aren't? I know that there's more to making a set of illustrations like this properly inclusive beyond just skin tone, but that seems like a strange omission given that the feature was already created.
- starkd 5y ago
  The color customization didn't seem to work when I tried it. Perhaps that's just a custom feature he's offering. When selecting, nothing changes.
- JacobThreeThree 5y ago
  It's an omission, but you can easily change anything in the graphics in any editor.
hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
I’ve long been wondering: I have a need for probably 3-6 custom vectors every 3-6 months. I want them to be consistent in style, colour etc. how can I go about finding an artist to do this for me? I’m happy to pay for quality, or use open source work if I find a good set, but currently I don’t know where to start
- aembleton 5y ago
  Maybe try fiverr, and try a few illustrators. When you find one you like, go back to them and ask for more in the same style.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Ekfos 5y ago
  I do illustrations, you can see my works at: https://ekfos.artstation.com/ https://ekfos.artstation.com/. If you like them, get in touch. Mods: not sure if such a post is welcome here; delete if you think it doesn't fit. There was not email attached to hsbauauvhabzb so I couldn't email him.
  - tillcarlos 5y ago
    Yeah - that's the guy I am working with. He has made the avatars of our website https://Pairing.dev https://Pairing.dev Here's his updated website: https://ekfos.com https://ekfos.com Can recommend 100%
- celestialcheese 5y ago
  Behance[1]. I've hired a number of illustrators and artists off there and the work has been fantastic, and surprisingly reasonably priced. It takes a bit of interviewing to find someone who's available who has a style you like. https://www.behance.net/ https://www.behance.net/
fleddr 5y ago
The 2022 Web Design starter kit: - Stripe-like header. - 3 key benefits side by side. - Unsubstantiated sponsors and awards list. - Information density: 20 words per viewport height. - Weirdly shaped human pudding figures. - Wavy curve backgrounds because we can. - Card-based design philosophy, formerly known as "boxes".
- jgstyle 5y ago
  Not to forget the big cookie banner
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Indeed, how could I forget. "We care about your privacy".
ameminator 5y ago
What a nice little project. I'm happy it can get some exposure here and I'll take a look to see if we can use it for my personal projects.
keithnz 5y ago
I'm not sure what it is about this style of drawing ( which does look great ), but when I see it, it feels too "corporate" or too "marketing" oriented and I don't really relate to it. It tends to trigger my "bullshit" detector. Probably because it's far too abused.
- echelon 5y ago
  It's gone too far. These designs are annoying. I'm so sick of these inoffensive, unremarkable, totally forgettable blob people that I'm going with an anthropomorphic kitsune as our corporate mascot. https://fakeyou.com https://fakeyou.com (3 pieces originally, with more I just had done for our upcoming storyteller.io virtual production tech: https://imgur.com/a/IPZgsoE https://imgur.com/a/IPZgsoE ) You'd be surprised the amazing commercial artwork you can get done by just exploring Twitter.
- gillesjacobs 5y ago
  The style is sometimes called 'Alegria art' or 'Corporate Memphis' [1] and is explicitly aimed at being inclusive. But megacorps have overused and it's cliche, garish and bland now. Luckily, there are communities dedicated to erasing this aesthetic scorch from our zeitgeist [2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart/
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    That's a new level of low for Reddit I think (at least it is my first time seeing it): "this community is available in the app". That is a very nice way to phrase "our way or the highway" I think. It's almost like those people want lemmy to succeed.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Another one: At least when I think of "Corporate Memphis" I think of weirdly disproportional humans. To the credit of the poster none of the humans I saw in these illustrations looked like their parents had a run in with radiation or nasty pesticides or anything. I.e. and to be clear: Unlike most other such illustrations I found these to be nice.
sockpuppet69 5y ago
reedciccio 5y ago
The licensing terms don't seem compatible with open source. They're just free (gratis) for many uses though.
- murtaza_alexa 5y ago
  You can use the illustrations as you want. The paragraph from our license which says that you can't use products to create templates, and so on, applies to our templates (containing code), not illustrations.
  - nick238 5y ago
    That's not how the MIT license works though. It says: "Permission is hereby granted, [...] without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software"
    - IanCal 5y ago
      I think there are two things though, the illustrations and templates. They are claiming one of those is open source. Not both.
  - reedciccio 5y ago
    I appreciate the response. As others have noted though, the licensing terms are very hard to parse. Have you considered using one of the Creative Commons licenses for the artwork, with commonly used software licenses for the software pieces?
jph 5y ago
This is excellent! And the license is on the home page: "MIT License: Use it on commercial or personal projects. Every design component we use to create our products can be downloaded for free under MIT License."
- a2800276 5y ago
  But ... under "Licenses" in the footer it says: "There are some things you can't do: -You can’t use our products to create Templates, UI Kits, Dashboards, Themes and Plugins that are distributed on your website or other marketplaces and they do direct competition to us. -You can’t deliver our source code to the general public through Open Source Projects without our written consent. -You can’t use our products to create website/app generators. -You can’t redistribute or resell our products source files as they are." It's a bit confusing.
  - w-j-w 5y ago
  - mtmail 5y ago
    I think paragraph (5) of https://www.creative-tim.com/license?ref=iradesign-footer https://www.creative-tim.com/license?ref=iradesign-footer applies here "There can be different components in some of our Items that can have a separate License from this one, and other license terms may apply to that specific component. Usually, those components come with a Free and Open Source MIT License."
    - murtaza_alexa 5y ago
      No worries! You can use the illustrations as you want. You can just give credits if you want. The paragraph from our license which says that you can't use products to create templates, and so on, applies to our templates (containing code), not illustrations.
      - electroly 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lnxg33k1 5y ago
Why someone should go to such lengths in order to make someone money for free? Have companies just become a leech on public with tax evasion and discount and private?
- theraido 5y ago
  <sarcasm>No obviously not, to evade taxes is to standup against communism! </sarcasm>
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- simonw 5y ago
  Giving something away for free is an extremely effective way of promoting your other paid projects. In this case the project helps get https://www.creative-tim.com/ https://www.creative-tim.com/ in front of a lot more people.
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    You can give it for free to individuals or place it on behance, and not just up for use for companies, but regardless of the specific site, I feel like it's being frustrating to see companies forgetting the social value of letting currency go around, and always asking for freebies, bailouts, tax discounts, laying off people to hire cheap labour or with lesser rights, I am not sure I am generalising it's just that its become a very huge weight on my productivity, I feel like labour is not valued anymore is not appreciated anymore and the only god has become the profit and dividends, and it's affecting my productivity and ability to trust people I work with, I am at my third job changed within a year and I started 2 weeks ago, and I already see conversation about hiring part of the team in Ukraine cuz its free and am almost going to send a resignation letter, other than unappreciated I am starting to feel dirty every time I am at a company.. I guess my post was just part of a deeper frustration that I am going through at the moment and which I can't see the end of
    - baremetal 5y ago
Sm0keDev 5y ago
theraido 5y ago
So it's like https://undraw.co/illustrations https://undraw.co/illustrations
- lekevicius 5y ago
  This is my favorite of these collections. Consistent style, not too many different fills (to change colors), and quite easy to mix and match different illustrations.
  - FractalHQ 5y ago
    Years ago when I discovered undraw I thought so too. Now, after seeing hundreds of them on various websites, the site of them instantly sours my perception of the brand and cheapens the perceived quality. I understand why they are so over-used though. Illustration is hard!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hardwaresofton 5y ago
Do want to say there is quite a spectrum in the quality of free illustrations out there. I personally check out a bit when I see anything that looks like or is in the style of undraw[0]. The best I've found and go back to is ManyPixels -- their free gallery is amazing: https://www.manypixels.co/gallery https://www.manypixels.co/gallery The stuff on the gallery above is free to use, but I always feel a little guilty -- I need to actually pay them for something some day. Their pricing is intense but they put out great work. [0]: https://undraw.co/illustrations https://undraw.co/illustrations
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- GordonS 5y ago
  I was interested in ManyPixels, but wow, that is an expensive service! From what you said though, it sounds like they might have a free plan, only I can't see anything about that on their site?
  - hardwaresofton 5y ago
    So you can use the stuff from the gallery for free! No attribution is even required. I'm going to update my earlier comment to make that clear.
systemvoltage 5y ago
These are the lifeless illustrations colloquially known as “Corporate Memphis”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://www.wired.co.uk/article/corporate-memphis-design-tech https://www.wired.co.uk/article/corporate-memphis-design-tec... Originally coined by: https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis
- sunnyam 5y ago
  See also https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gist 5y ago
  Exactly (thanks never heard that term). Essentially similar to clip art or stock photography.
FunnyLookinHat 5y ago
This is great! Thank you for sharing. But... is anyone else growing tired of the sales-pitch we're all using? And do any of us find it valuable for ourselves when we read them? We've trained ourselves (collectively, as an industry) to expect a specific type of one-page: hero image, call-out-message with CTA, then abstract illustrations combined with text about how great something is. I don't know what I want in it's place (let's be honest, I'm clearly no marketing expert!), but what we've landed on has an incredibly bad signal:noise ratio.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Personally I take it as a good sign if an application has an "ugly" information-dense website.
- 4ec0755f5522 5y ago
  I hate it without realizing how much I hate it, and now that you've pointed it out in such simple, concrete terms I'm not going to be able to stop seeing it everywhere.
- blurker 5y ago
  For me, sort of yes but also no. It's kind've a wash actually. As you pointed out, this type of design is so common it doesn't really make the site bad or good, just "normal." On the other hand, poorly done designs set off red flags. So if you aren't capable of producing something original, it's probably best to go with this. So I'd say it's a safe way to make an acceptable site. But I definitely prefer a site that is well-designed and not this generic stuff that is the trend. I agree, it's a bad signal:noise ratio and it also gives me a bit of an icky corporate vibe. /shrug
- indigochill 5y ago
  > is anyone else growing tired of the sales-pitch we're all using? Not growing, been there for years. Another common annoyance is when they have a pricing page that ultimately asks you to schedule a phone call with their salespeople (not applicable here, but a common sales pattern for these sorts of things). > I don't know what I want in it's place The core of the problem IMO is that so much of these sorts of pages are filled with fluff that doesn't communicate very well about the product (or maybe it does, but not at a level that I will ever engage with, like case studies). One solution in some cases is to put a video demo of the product front and center. Look at https://about.gitlab.com/ https://about.gitlab.com/ for example. To some extent it's following the same pattern, but when you load the page the first thing you see is a pair of buttons. Get a free trial or watch a video demo. I'm annoyed they make it so hard to find their FOSS Community Edition (IMO that's a far better "free trial" than the one you have to sign up for), but just judging the landing page, the first thing you see is a CTA to get more information. The OP's page's first visual doesn't have that. You actually can't even find an actionable link until you've scrolled all the way to the bottom (if we ignore the top bar). Another annoyance of mine is the marketing cheapening of words like "awesome" and "amazing", which is in full force in OP. In marketing copy (and in common vernacular among some people) they're just white noise. It's a fun exercise to rewrite marketing copy with all the adjectives removed. Marketing criticism aside, though, I like the interactive element on OP. It's unnecessary, but cute.
alexk307 5y ago
I love this! Great job
phaedrus 5y ago
I'm working on a free and open source Windows app to both learn and demo the new C++ coroutines. I realized one metaphor for how they're implemented is a Choose Your Own Adventure story. I wanted to have pictures with the text and choices, but although I can draw I didn't want to spend that kind of time for something that's a supporting element to the main point of the work. These illustrations look like they'd work well for that! Unlike some of the other free image sites people shared, I think the enveloping backgrounds you provide with the foreground people and objects lends itself to storytelling use.
nbzso 5y ago
The more and more UI and Illustration are "accessible" and "cheap/free" the more people like me who can produce quality illustrations will have big bucks. So keep it rolling with Corporate Memphisication.
- pixxel 5y ago
  Free illustrations are the new ‘business_person_pointing_at_computer.jpg’.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
emadabdulrahim 5y ago
This is great. Here's a tip from a designer and engineer by craft. If you want your website or app to have a great design, then either use high-quality images, icons, illustrations, etc, or don't at all. This might sound unwarranted, but it's true. Your typography should be great, and so should your media assets. This is what makes up most content on any website. See this for yourself by visiting Microsoft[0] and Apple[1] websites for example. Compare the quality of their product shots, images, and illustrations, if any. See how it makes or breaks the design of the whole site. Ofc there's a lot more to design than typography and media assets. [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/?ql=2 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/?ql=2 [1] https://apple.com https://apple.com
bitwize 5y ago
Neat. The illustrations are not nearly as cringey as the Alegria style ones I see nearly everywhere now. More reminiscent of 90s corporate Memphis. Getting Micrografx Designer flashbacks.
e98cuenc 5y ago
Shameless plug, we have a good set of illustrations on https://www.storyset.com/ https://www.storyset.com/. The big difference is StorySet illustrations can be animated and the styles are different. Both products are quite complementary.
- TheMightyLlama 5y ago
  They look amazing. Is there a way to requeset custom illutrations?
- punkspider 5y ago
  This is awesome! Thanks!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nnf 5y ago
  Very nice. Is there an option to pay for illustrations to avoid having to place an attribution link?
  - e98cuenc 5y ago
    Excellent question… we don’t have a separate subscription for StorySet, but you can download all these illustrations in Freepik.com without attributing if you subscribe to Freepik. It’s an oversight that we don’t allow explicitly in the terms of use of the Freepik subscription to use content downloaded from StorySet without attribution. Let me try to fix that tomorrow. Sorry the system is not straightforward, StorySet is a side project and we didn’t think of monetizing it. Super glad you like it!
inasmuch 5y ago
Sorry to be a Scrooge, but I wish people would stop doing this. It's hard enough to make a living as an illustrator in the age of digital photography and photobashing without having to compete with generic (which I mean both descriptively and—sorry—pejoratively) illustration libraries. This stuff undermines the discipline and suggests that its skills are easily acquired and the work is easily done, so there's no reason to compensate people for it. There's a lot of talk on HN about the importance of paying for things, and while I know that most of that is in opposition to 'paying' with your privacy, which is very different from what I'm addressing here, I think the basic idea of value still applies. It's important to pay for shit sometimes. Forget the ethics of supporting your peers and just think about how it'll get you better quality, custom work. Open-source is awesome, and I totally support anyone fighting that fight, but this kind of work is pretty clearly aimed at startups trying to penny-pinch their way into the brand signaling and associations afforded by adopting the corporate memphis look. Maybe that's an unfair read, but I can't remember the last time I saw an unfunded open-source project trying to look like every VC-backed lifestyle app that launched over the last six years. On a particularly bad day, I can't help but feel like this kind of project is leading toward the centralization of art as a whole. It's undeniably stagnating commercial artistry. Sincerely, Someone who is still butthurt about Squarespace, et al. killing off small and solo web design/dev shops.
- blurker 5y ago
  I'm curious, do you feel this way about open source software as well? Does it cheapen the value of being a developer? If not, why do you think art is different and why is open source art a bad thing?
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    I would say open source creates new opportunities for developers. Instead of paying a developer to implement their own JS view library and then use it to solve a problem, you hire the developer to use React to solve 2 problems. That said there is an aspect of AWS (etc.) making money off the back off the efforts of certain open source projects. Stock illustrations on the other hand are a direct replacement for artist's work. If I find a logo online, I don't need to pay someone to design a logo.
swyx 5y ago
I collect a repo of all these free illo projects here! https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy#illustrations https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy#illustrations
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Unreal! How did I never find this before? Your ToC needs a second (sub) level though! I'll sit there and craft the markup for it if you want.
  - swyx 5y ago
    thank you! the TOC is autogenerated, honestly what i need more is someone to go thru and see if the heading hierarchies make sense since this grew organically over time
- DecayingOrganic 5y ago
  I'd also recommend https://www.evernote.design/categories/illustrations https://www.evernote.design/categories/illustrations which besides illustrations it also has categories such as free icons, design systems, sounds, and so on.
  - etewiah 5y ago
    Crawling with ads. Unusable :(
- thepra 5y ago
  saved
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Iradesign.io is in there twice! :D
- dotancohen 5y ago
  I've got a few PRs to send, but my Github SSH keys aren't here right now. I'll send them in a few days. Thanks! Most everything that I've got to add I've found here on HN, and were superior to what I was previously using. I'm not affiliated with any of it.
gkoberger 5y ago
I never want to criticize something that someone has made, but I do want to offer an alternative! I think you'd be SHOCKED how much amazing, completely custom artwork is available out there on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. For $100, you can get something beautiful and not generic... and best of all, support an artist! (Obviously you can eventually spend significantly more on talented designers, once your project becomes more successful! Design isn't cheap, but it definitely can scale as your needs and wallet do.)
- jopsen 5y ago
  How do you know you're not being sold something copy/pasted from an image search?
  - gkoberger 5y ago
    I'm confident there are people out there running scams, but every single artist I've used has done something so custom that it's 100% definitely made by them specifically for me. They also tend to send sketches beforehand, and most have a very distinct style.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
mdoms 5y ago
Why does every Silicon Valley company have these creepy looking people on their websites?
- Mizza 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis Facebook did it, everybody copies Facebook. It's awful.
  - boppo1 5y ago
    I've been looking for a term for this, thank you.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Like another commenter said, it's awful: they're visually lifeless and they don't add value in terms of being illustrative of the idea their associated text block is meant to convey, nor do they catch the eye in the first place. You might as well have a lorem-ipsum cat picture in their place, since it has about the same utility.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- digisign 5y ago
  It's simpler and a smaller download than the iStockPhoto of yester-decade. Criticism would be more constructive however, if it included an example of something better.
tobr 5y ago
Why does the “Calendar Image Illustration” have six-day weeks? https://iradesign.io/illustrations/backgrounds https://iradesign.io/illustrations/backgrounds
- kingcharles 5y ago
  The same reason cartoon characters have three fingers.
- minikomi 5y ago
  7 day weeks are part of the paid plan
- mig39 5y ago
  Looks like they just start on Sunday, which is a different colour.
  - tobr 5y ago
    They helpfully put numbers in that suggest that’s not at all what’s going on.
- dEnigma 5y ago
  Well, it also seems to have only 24 days. So maybe it's an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar
- paradite 5y ago
  I think it's a fine illustration of the concept of calendar?
  - tobr 5y ago
    For a tiny icon it would have been a reasonable compromise in interest of readability at low resolution, but here it just comes across as a sloppy mistake.
tiffanyh 5y ago
Copyright? How does copyright work for something like this?
victorbstan 5y ago
Where’s clippy?
rglover 5y ago
Can't wait for the subtle, inadvertent emotional malady that is a generation raised on faceless (and legless!) bubble people cartoons.
- imgabe 5y ago
  What a sad, weak people we must be, to be emotionally destroyed by marketing material. How disappointing for humanity to survive wars famines and plagues only to be done in by insufficiently detailed cartoons.
  - rglover 5y ago
    When major employers have cry closets and we constantly tell people to supplant normal human emotions with pharmaceuticals, I'm going to roll the dice and say the trajectory is decidedly downward. At least, for a short while.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

572 points by murtaza_alexa 5y ago

Anyone else find it odd that the colors are (somewhat) customizable, but the skin tones aren't? I know that there's more to making a set of illustrations like this properly inclusive beyond just skin tone, but that seems like a strange omission given that the feature was already created.

starkd 5y ago
The color customization didn't seem to work when I tried it. Perhaps that's just a custom feature he's offering. When selecting, nothing changes.
JacobThreeThree 5y ago
It's an omission, but you can easily change anything in the graphics in any editor.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago

I’ve long been wondering: I have a need for probably 3-6 custom vectors every 3-6 months. I want them to be consistent in style, colour etc. how can I go about finding an artist to do this for me? I’m happy to pay for quality, or use open source work if I find a good set, but currently I don’t know where to start

aembleton 5y ago
Maybe try fiverr, and try a few illustrators. When you find one you like, go back to them and ask for more in the same style.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Ekfos 5y ago
I do illustrations, you can see my works at: https://ekfos.artstation.com/ https://ekfos.artstation.com/. If you like them, get in touch. Mods: not sure if such a post is welcome here; delete if you think it doesn't fit. There was not email attached to hsbauauvhabzb so I couldn't email him.
- tillcarlos 5y ago
  Yeah - that's the guy I am working with. He has made the avatars of our website https://Pairing.dev https://Pairing.dev Here's his updated website: https://ekfos.com https://ekfos.com Can recommend 100%
celestialcheese 5y ago
Behance[1]. I've hired a number of illustrators and artists off there and the work has been fantastic, and surprisingly reasonably priced. It takes a bit of interviewing to find someone who's available who has a style you like. https://www.behance.net/ https://www.behance.net/

fleddr 5y ago

The 2022 Web Design starter kit: - Stripe-like header. - 3 key benefits side by side. - Unsubstantiated sponsors and awards list. - Information density: 20 words per viewport height. - Weirdly shaped human pudding figures. - Wavy curve backgrounds because we can. - Card-based design philosophy, formerly known as "boxes".

jgstyle 5y ago
Not to forget the big cookie banner
- fleddr 5y ago
  Indeed, how could I forget. "We care about your privacy".

ameminator 5y ago

What a nice little project. I'm happy it can get some exposure here and I'll take a look to see if we can use it for my personal projects.

keithnz 5y ago

I'm not sure what it is about this style of drawing ( which does look great ), but when I see it, it feels too "corporate" or too "marketing" oriented and I don't really relate to it. It tends to trigger my "bullshit" detector. Probably because it's far too abused.

echelon 5y ago
It's gone too far. These designs are annoying. I'm so sick of these inoffensive, unremarkable, totally forgettable blob people that I'm going with an anthropomorphic kitsune as our corporate mascot. https://fakeyou.com https://fakeyou.com (3 pieces originally, with more I just had done for our upcoming storyteller.io virtual production tech: https://imgur.com/a/IPZgsoE https://imgur.com/a/IPZgsoE ) You'd be surprised the amazing commercial artwork you can get done by just exploring Twitter.
gillesjacobs 5y ago
The style is sometimes called 'Alegria art' or 'Corporate Memphis' [1] and is explicitly aimed at being inclusive. But megacorps have overused and it's cliche, garish and bland now. Luckily, there are communities dedicated to erasing this aesthetic scorch from our zeitgeist [2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart/
- skinkestek 5y ago
  That's a new level of low for Reddit I think (at least it is my first time seeing it): "this community is available in the app". That is a very nice way to phrase "our way or the highway" I think. It's almost like those people want lemmy to succeed.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Another one: At least when I think of "Corporate Memphis" I think of weirdly disproportional humans. To the credit of the poster none of the humans I saw in these illustrations looked like their parents had a run in with radiation or nasty pesticides or anything. I.e. and to be clear: Unlike most other such illustrations I found these to be nice.

sockpuppet69 5y ago

reedciccio 5y ago

The licensing terms don't seem compatible with open source. They're just free (gratis) for many uses though.

murtaza_alexa 5y ago
You can use the illustrations as you want. The paragraph from our license which says that you can't use products to create templates, and so on, applies to our templates (containing code), not illustrations.
- nick238 5y ago
  That's not how the MIT license works though. It says: "Permission is hereby granted, [...] without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software"
  - IanCal 5y ago
    I think there are two things though, the illustrations and templates. They are claiming one of those is open source. Not both.
- reedciccio 5y ago
  I appreciate the response. As others have noted though, the licensing terms are very hard to parse. Have you considered using one of the Creative Commons licenses for the artwork, with commonly used software licenses for the software pieces?

jph 5y ago

This is excellent! And the license is on the home page: "MIT License: Use it on commercial or personal projects. Every design component we use to create our products can be downloaded for free under MIT License."

a2800276 5y ago
But ... under "Licenses" in the footer it says: "There are some things you can't do: -You can’t use our products to create Templates, UI Kits, Dashboards, Themes and Plugins that are distributed on your website or other marketplaces and they do direct competition to us. -You can’t deliver our source code to the general public through Open Source Projects without our written consent. -You can’t use our products to create website/app generators. -You can’t redistribute or resell our products source files as they are." It's a bit confusing.
- w-j-w 5y ago
- mtmail 5y ago
  I think paragraph (5) of https://www.creative-tim.com/license?ref=iradesign-footer https://www.creative-tim.com/license?ref=iradesign-footer applies here "There can be different components in some of our Items that can have a separate License from this one, and other license terms may apply to that specific component. Usually, those components come with a Free and Open Source MIT License."
  - murtaza_alexa 5y ago
    No worries! You can use the illustrations as you want. You can just give credits if you want. The paragraph from our license which says that you can't use products to create templates, and so on, applies to our templates (containing code), not illustrations.
    - electroly 5y ago

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lnxg33k1 5y ago

Why someone should go to such lengths in order to make someone money for free? Have companies just become a leech on public with tax evasion and discount and private?

theraido 5y ago
<sarcasm>No obviously not, to evade taxes is to standup against communism! </sarcasm>
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simonw 5y ago
Giving something away for free is an extremely effective way of promoting your other paid projects. In this case the project helps get https://www.creative-tim.com/ https://www.creative-tim.com/ in front of a lot more people.
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  You can give it for free to individuals or place it on behance, and not just up for use for companies, but regardless of the specific site, I feel like it's being frustrating to see companies forgetting the social value of letting currency go around, and always asking for freebies, bailouts, tax discounts, laying off people to hire cheap labour or with lesser rights, I am not sure I am generalising it's just that its become a very huge weight on my productivity, I feel like labour is not valued anymore is not appreciated anymore and the only god has become the profit and dividends, and it's affecting my productivity and ability to trust people I work with, I am at my third job changed within a year and I started 2 weeks ago, and I already see conversation about hiring part of the team in Ukraine cuz its free and am almost going to send a resignation letter, other than unappreciated I am starting to feel dirty every time I am at a company.. I guess my post was just part of a deeper frustration that I am going through at the moment and which I can't see the end of
  - baremetal 5y ago

Sm0keDev 5y ago

theraido 5y ago

So it's like https://undraw.co/illustrations https://undraw.co/illustrations

lekevicius 5y ago
This is my favorite of these collections. Consistent style, not too many different fills (to change colors), and quite easy to mix and match different illustrations.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  Years ago when I discovered undraw I thought so too. Now, after seeing hundreds of them on various websites, the site of them instantly sours my perception of the brand and cheapens the perceived quality. I understand why they are so over-used though. Illustration is hard!
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hardwaresofton 5y ago

Do want to say there is quite a spectrum in the quality of free illustrations out there. I personally check out a bit when I see anything that looks like or is in the style of undraw[0]. The best I've found and go back to is ManyPixels -- their free gallery is amazing: https://www.manypixels.co/gallery https://www.manypixels.co/gallery The stuff on the gallery above is free to use, but I always feel a little guilty -- I need to actually pay them for something some day. Their pricing is intense but they put out great work. [0]: https://undraw.co/illustrations https://undraw.co/illustrations

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GordonS 5y ago
I was interested in ManyPixels, but wow, that is an expensive service! From what you said though, it sounds like they might have a free plan, only I can't see anything about that on their site?
- hardwaresofton 5y ago
  So you can use the stuff from the gallery for free! No attribution is even required. I'm going to update my earlier comment to make that clear.

systemvoltage 5y ago

These are the lifeless illustrations colloquially known as “Corporate Memphis”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://www.wired.co.uk/article/corporate-memphis-design-tech https://www.wired.co.uk/article/corporate-memphis-design-tec... Originally coined by: https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis https://www.are.na/claire-l-evans/corporate-memphis

sunnyam 5y ago
See also https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckalegriaart
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gist 5y ago
Exactly (thanks never heard that term). Essentially similar to clip art or stock photography.

FunnyLookinHat 5y ago

This is great! Thank you for sharing. But... is anyone else growing tired of the sales-pitch we're all using? And do any of us find it valuable for ourselves when we read them? We've trained ourselves (collectively, as an industry) to expect a specific type of one-page: hero image, call-out-message with CTA, then abstract illustrations combined with text about how great something is. I don't know what I want in it's place (let's be honest, I'm clearly no marketing expert!), but what we've landed on has an incredibly bad signal:noise ratio.

nerdponx 5y ago
Personally I take it as a good sign if an application has an "ugly" information-dense website.
4ec0755f5522 5y ago
I hate it without realizing how much I hate it, and now that you've pointed it out in such simple, concrete terms I'm not going to be able to stop seeing it everywhere.
blurker 5y ago
For me, sort of yes but also no. It's kind've a wash actually. As you pointed out, this type of design is so common it doesn't really make the site bad or good, just "normal." On the other hand, poorly done designs set off red flags. So if you aren't capable of producing something original, it's probably best to go with this. So I'd say it's a safe way to make an acceptable site. But I definitely prefer a site that is well-designed and not this generic stuff that is the trend. I agree, it's a bad signal:noise ratio and it also gives me a bit of an icky corporate vibe. /shrug
indigochill 5y ago
> is anyone else growing tired of the sales-pitch we're all using? Not growing, been there for years. Another common annoyance is when they have a pricing page that ultimately asks you to schedule a phone call with their salespeople (not applicable here, but a common sales pattern for these sorts of things). > I don't know what I want in it's place The core of the problem IMO is that so much of these sorts of pages are filled with fluff that doesn't communicate very well about the product (or maybe it does, but not at a level that I will ever engage with, like case studies). One solution in some cases is to put a video demo of the product front and center. Look at https://about.gitlab.com/ https://about.gitlab.com/ for example. To some extent it's following the same pattern, but when you load the page the first thing you see is a pair of buttons. Get a free trial or watch a video demo. I'm annoyed they make it so hard to find their FOSS Community Edition (IMO that's a far better "free trial" than the one you have to sign up for), but just judging the landing page, the first thing you see is a CTA to get more information. The OP's page's first visual doesn't have that. You actually can't even find an actionable link until you've scrolled all the way to the bottom (if we ignore the top bar). Another annoyance of mine is the marketing cheapening of words like "awesome" and "amazing", which is in full force in OP. In marketing copy (and in common vernacular among some people) they're just white noise. It's a fun exercise to rewrite marketing copy with all the adjectives removed. Marketing criticism aside, though, I like the interactive element on OP. It's unnecessary, but cute.

alexk307 5y ago

I love this! Great job

phaedrus 5y ago

I'm working on a free and open source Windows app to both learn and demo the new C++ coroutines. I realized one metaphor for how they're implemented is a Choose Your Own Adventure story. I wanted to have pictures with the text and choices, but although I can draw I didn't want to spend that kind of time for something that's a supporting element to the main point of the work. These illustrations look like they'd work well for that! Unlike some of the other free image sites people shared, I think the enveloping backgrounds you provide with the foreground people and objects lends itself to storytelling use.

nbzso 5y ago

The more and more UI and Illustration are "accessible" and "cheap/free" the more people like me who can produce quality illustrations will have big bucks. So keep it rolling with Corporate Memphisication.

pixxel 5y ago
Free illustrations are the new ‘business_person_pointing_at_computer.jpg’.
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emadabdulrahim 5y ago

This is great. Here's a tip from a designer and engineer by craft. If you want your website or app to have a great design, then either use high-quality images, icons, illustrations, etc, or don't at all. This might sound unwarranted, but it's true. Your typography should be great, and so should your media assets. This is what makes up most content on any website. See this for yourself by visiting Microsoft[0] and Apple[1] websites for example. Compare the quality of their product shots, images, and illustrations, if any. See how it makes or breaks the design of the whole site. Ofc there's a lot more to design than typography and media assets. [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/?ql=2 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/?ql=2 [1] https://apple.com https://apple.com

bitwize 5y ago

Neat. The illustrations are not nearly as cringey as the Alegria style ones I see nearly everywhere now. More reminiscent of 90s corporate Memphis. Getting Micrografx Designer flashbacks.

e98cuenc 5y ago

Shameless plug, we have a good set of illustrations on https://www.storyset.com/ https://www.storyset.com/. The big difference is StorySet illustrations can be animated and the styles are different. Both products are quite complementary.

TheMightyLlama 5y ago
They look amazing. Is there a way to requeset custom illutrations?
punkspider 5y ago
This is awesome! Thanks!
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nnf 5y ago
Very nice. Is there an option to pay for illustrations to avoid having to place an attribution link?
- e98cuenc 5y ago
  Excellent question… we don’t have a separate subscription for StorySet, but you can download all these illustrations in Freepik.com without attributing if you subscribe to Freepik. It’s an oversight that we don’t allow explicitly in the terms of use of the Freepik subscription to use content downloaded from StorySet without attribution. Let me try to fix that tomorrow. Sorry the system is not straightforward, StorySet is a side project and we didn’t think of monetizing it. Super glad you like it!

inasmuch 5y ago

Sorry to be a Scrooge, but I wish people would stop doing this. It's hard enough to make a living as an illustrator in the age of digital photography and photobashing without having to compete with generic (which I mean both descriptively and—sorry—pejoratively) illustration libraries. This stuff undermines the discipline and suggests that its skills are easily acquired and the work is easily done, so there's no reason to compensate people for it. There's a lot of talk on HN about the importance of paying for things, and while I know that most of that is in opposition to 'paying' with your privacy, which is very different from what I'm addressing here, I think the basic idea of value still applies. It's important to pay for shit sometimes. Forget the ethics of supporting your peers and just think about how it'll get you better quality, custom work. Open-source is awesome, and I totally support anyone fighting that fight, but this kind of work is pretty clearly aimed at startups trying to penny-pinch their way into the brand signaling and associations afforded by adopting the corporate memphis look. Maybe that's an unfair read, but I can't remember the last time I saw an unfunded open-source project trying to look like every VC-backed lifestyle app that launched over the last six years. On a particularly bad day, I can't help but feel like this kind of project is leading toward the centralization of art as a whole. It's undeniably stagnating commercial artistry. Sincerely, Someone who is still butthurt about Squarespace, et al. killing off small and solo web design/dev shops.

blurker 5y ago
I'm curious, do you feel this way about open source software as well? Does it cheapen the value of being a developer? If not, why do you think art is different and why is open source art a bad thing?
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  I would say open source creates new opportunities for developers. Instead of paying a developer to implement their own JS view library and then use it to solve a problem, you hire the developer to use React to solve 2 problems. That said there is an aspect of AWS (etc.) making money off the back off the efforts of certain open source projects. Stock illustrations on the other hand are a direct replacement for artist's work. If I find a logo online, I don't need to pay someone to design a logo.

swyx 5y ago

I collect a repo of all these free illo projects here! https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy#illustrations https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy#illustrations

kingcharles 5y ago
Unreal! How did I never find this before? Your ToC needs a second (sub) level though! I'll sit there and craft the markup for it if you want.
- swyx 5y ago
  thank you! the TOC is autogenerated, honestly what i need more is someone to go thru and see if the heading hierarchies make sense since this grew organically over time
DecayingOrganic 5y ago
I'd also recommend https://www.evernote.design/categories/illustrations https://www.evernote.design/categories/illustrations which besides illustrations it also has categories such as free icons, design systems, sounds, and so on.
- etewiah 5y ago
  Crawling with ads. Unusable :(
thepra 5y ago
saved
Aeolun 5y ago
Iradesign.io is in there twice! :D
dotancohen 5y ago
I've got a few PRs to send, but my Github SSH keys aren't here right now. I'll send them in a few days. Thanks! Most everything that I've got to add I've found here on HN, and were superior to what I was previously using. I'm not affiliated with any of it.

gkoberger 5y ago

I never want to criticize something that someone has made, but I do want to offer an alternative! I think you'd be SHOCKED how much amazing, completely custom artwork is available out there on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. For $100, you can get something beautiful and not generic... and best of all, support an artist! (Obviously you can eventually spend significantly more on talented designers, once your project becomes more successful! Design isn't cheap, but it definitely can scale as your needs and wallet do.)

jopsen 5y ago
How do you know you're not being sold something copy/pasted from an image search?
- gkoberger 5y ago
  I'm confident there are people out there running scams, but every single artist I've used has done something so custom that it's 100% definitely made by them specifically for me. They also tend to send sketches beforehand, and most have a very distinct style.
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mdoms 5y ago

Why does every Silicon Valley company have these creepy looking people on their websites?

Mizza 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis Facebook did it, everybody copies Facebook. It's awful.
- boppo1 5y ago
  I've been looking for a term for this, thank you.
newsbinator 5y ago
Like another commenter said, it's awful: they're visually lifeless and they don't add value in terms of being illustrative of the idea their associated text block is meant to convey, nor do they catch the eye in the first place. You might as well have a lorem-ipsum cat picture in their place, since it has about the same utility.
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digisign 5y ago
It's simpler and a smaller download than the iStockPhoto of yester-decade. Criticism would be more constructive however, if it included an example of something better.

tobr 5y ago

Why does the “Calendar Image Illustration” have six-day weeks? https://iradesign.io/illustrations/backgrounds https://iradesign.io/illustrations/backgrounds

kingcharles 5y ago
The same reason cartoon characters have three fingers.
minikomi 5y ago
7 day weeks are part of the paid plan
mig39 5y ago
Looks like they just start on Sunday, which is a different colour.
- tobr 5y ago
  They helpfully put numbers in that suggest that’s not at all what’s going on.
dEnigma 5y ago
Well, it also seems to have only 24 days. So maybe it's an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar
paradite 5y ago
I think it's a fine illustration of the concept of calendar?
- tobr 5y ago
  For a tiny icon it would have been a reasonable compromise in interest of readability at low resolution, but here it just comes across as a sloppy mistake.

tiffanyh 5y ago

victorbstan 5y ago

Where’s clippy?

rglover 5y ago

Can't wait for the subtle, inadvertent emotional malady that is a generation raised on faceless (and legless!) bubble people cartoons.

imgabe 5y ago
What a sad, weak people we must be, to be emotionally destroyed by marketing material. How disappointing for humanity to survive wars famines and plagues only to be done in by insufficiently detailed cartoons.
- rglover 5y ago
  When major employers have cry closets and we constantly tell people to supplant normal human emotions with pharmaceuticals, I'm going to roll the dice and say the trajectory is decidedly downward. At least, for a short while.
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