Free or Low-Cost Quality SVG Images Source?

I need good quality generic SVG images for logo and icon design.
Things like radiant suns, sunsets, sunbursts, occupational motifs, sport/activity motifs, etc.
Good quality, good color.

But all “Free SVG” fishes out of the net is just rubbishy paid sign-up traps and B&W junk.
Anyone got any ideas ?
We all need these things . . .

Free often comes at a cost.

Plenty of free stock images sites.

I personally don’t use them.

@Smurf2:

I do not use stock images either - at least not for actual people or products images.
They are patently false set-ups and will turn off mature consumers.

But good SVGs are vital for composing a good logo or icon and they take a good expense of time and effort to make oneself.
I am prepared to pay a bit for a good quality SVG image.
A one-off payment, of course - no royalty on repeated use.

Most licenses do not allow to be reused for logo. Any part of it.

You’re better off creating them yourself or hiring a designer to create them ad hoc.

We hired a designer to design some logos in the past and I found the designs on stock sites.

Had to fire the designer. Dump the designs and start over.

So you might be able to pay. You might not be able to use in logos or merchantable material.

I don’t get it.
You say you paid a designer to create custom logo designs but then found that the design he/she made was a copy of something off the net . . .
I thought checks for originality/trademarking was standard in the pro graphic design trade.

But maybe you are right for generic stuff like sun glares or flashes, etc that would be used in several logos/icons - it may be worth the time making them.

Right. Why would anyone spend their days producing high quality graphics to give them away free? You get paid for your work, right?

Using graphics that are free and available to everyone in logos and icons isn’t “design”.

You’re mistaken.

Yes, when you need a graphic of a baseball, draw a baseball.

All that said, welcome to the forum. If your search for free, high-quality graphical assets brought you here, unfortunately you’ll have to keep searching. For the most part, forum regulars here are creative professionals who don’t trade in the free and easy. It’s very unlikely you’ll be turned on to any secret trove of free resources that you wouldn’t have already found on your own. On the other hand, if you need advice about producing something original, this is a great place to get it.

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You can’t use stock vector art for logos. Usually the licensing specifically says you can’t, but if you find a free source that doesn’t, 1. I’d question the integrity of the site and the artwork on it and 2. you, or more specifically your client, cannot trademark their logo. Anyone else in the world, or across the street, can take that same art and make their own logo out of it and nothing your client can do or say about it - other than maybe sue the shit outta you for malpractice.

But hey, that’s the state of the industry these days. Buyer beware.

All right.
Though in my case (small business customers only) they just can’t afford or see sense in trademarking a logo for > $500.

I use Inkscape for SVG icons.
You can get a few good basic intro series’ to Inkscape and other assorted trickmeisters like LogosByNick on YouTube. But seldom do you find a good tutorials that would help you do the sort of thing I’m needing to do here.

But maybe you know otherwise ?

I use 123rf for my commercial stock images - they provide a SVG download option on vectors.

Stock sites have thousands of logo available for “standard” use. The idea is that you will see one and buy it outright i.e. buy the copyright. Sadly, many will use these logos without buying the copyright and risk getting sued!

I just looked at 123rf and find it’s just another money-hole.
They say they have an image in SVG but then the download is just EPS.

I didn’t think of the issue you raised in relation to copyright.
But will this apply if the purchased images are altered in appearance (shape) with each use ? It’s a pain making a new SVG just for an occupational symbol like a cog & compass for engineers.

icons, just buy and use. They aren’t logos. They aren’t used the same way as logos.
If the icons have to be specifically brarnded to a company, then maybe you create customized ones, or maybe you don’t.

If you are advising small business owners who “can’t afford a…logo” to use stock items against usage rules, you are advising them incorrectly. If they can’t afford a proper logo, maybe they can’t afford to be in business. Or let em take their chances with a logo for five bucks (where theivery and copying is also rampant.) If you don’t know or care about proper usage, maybe you shouldn’t be offering services either. Really done with this industry and its cowboys.

Why logo in SVG anyway? It has no support for print - and is always RGB.

Meaning if you place a SVG in a document for print - and it has black - the black is converted to 4 colour black - and that is shit for logos.

Stop using SVG for logos for starters - by all means convert your final logo to SVG for web or whatever.


All stock sites are money holes - and all come with license agreements.

Even the free ones.


If need tutorial on how to make sunburst or effect for logo - or to be buying these things then I would question why are you even a designer or someone offering this service?

Just a general query. I don’t know your full story - so please let me know if I am missing anything?

If you cannot do it - hire a professional that can create what you want on ad hoc basis.

And check that they are not stealing logos from reputable sites or even nefarious sites.

Work with a designer - create designs 100% legit.

And youtube tutorials are like learning to fly a space ship by doing online course.

It’s not possible and youtube is not an accredited learning tool for graphic design - I’d say 99% of the people who post to youtube are hack/wannabes.

Useless.

Yes. I agree.

@PrintDriver:

The reality of the small business sector is this:
Most people do not set up their own business to bring something new to that industry or even to make a lot of money. The commonest motivations I observe is narcissism - the desire to be at the beginning, middle and end of all around them - and the desire to tell others what to do rather than work under the direction of another person.
You may have encountered this yourself.

But even the odd enlightened business person has to baulk at the idea of $200+ ‘down the drain’ for a logo with no guarantee whatever of any increase in footfall to their door.
I have enough trouble getting people to see the benefits of a website, for Chrissakes, never mind $200 -$400 on a logo design - without trademarking.

You are right, of course, that it is good investment.
But they don’t see it like so.
And they pay the piper . . .

@Smurf2:

Inkscape supports CMYK.

I’ve literally stopped dealing with people like this a long time ago.

They want a logo for 50 quid - that’s what they value their business at.
They don’t want to spend 30k on a website - they don’t value their business.

The logo is the face of the company.
The website is a sales tool.

You want the face of your company to be respected.
You pay the website what you would pay a sales person.

If I am dealing with a business that refutes this I cut ties with them.
They are not the people I want to deal with.
And 99% of them go bust within a short time frame.

Why waste my time/effort to do a job that they do not value in the slightest???

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Inkscape might - but SVG does not.
It’s sRGB all the way.

@Smurf2:

Beautiful.
Heroically poignant and MLK style high-minded.

But each web designer has to get off the ground and this means:

  1. Doing a decent number of sites for agreeing local businesses “on the house” till you get a name for good work;

and

  1. Cutting out proportionately high costs from the final figure for a basic brochure site + FB, Twitter and YT social media channels. This is around $500 today. The $200 I’d pay to a graphic artist for a smart logo is my profit margin on this job, pure and simple.
    It’s vexing also for me. On a human-efficiency basis - as it will take me a lot longer to do a logo than a pro designer and I can charge nothing like the $200 extra for it - it is madness.

So for printed logos, you specify it in CMYK, enlarge it suitably and convert it to a form suitable for printing.

The website/app logos and icons remain in sRGB.

No

I specify logos in CMYK black only first
Then in Pantone
Then in full colour CMYK (approximations of the Pantone process)
Then RGB versions closely relating as possible to the established brand colours.


Not the point though.

SVG only contains sRGB data - it cannot contain CMYK.
Maybe a new standard of SVG will in the future, who knows.

Currently it does not.

If you make logo only in SVG - and it contains black - it will be printed as 4 colour black.

It’s an issue for offset printing - where it’s likely a logo will end up at some point.

The road to successful freelance work in the design field is to get several years of experience while working for someone else so that you can enter the freelance field with enough chops to not have to deal with the clients you describe.

Just jumping in? Without an education of some kind and no work experience?
I wouldn’t hire you. Even with a portfolio full of low end websites and ‘logos’ (reverse image searching is now a thing, if you come up as a user of illegal art, your prospectus is immediately binned and word gets around.)

The companies that do hire you for the reasons you describe, deserve what they get.
I’m done here.

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