Finding imagery for your project be it stock photos, icons or vector illustrations can be a challenge (if you don’t know where to look) so today I’m going to run through my top 5 sites when it comes to free vector images.

All of the sites below offer completely free vectors that you can download to your computer in a variety of formats such as .eps, .ai or png. Some of the websites also offer the likes of .svg and will allow you to resize depending on your requirements prior to download so you don’t need to spend a lot of time messing around in the likes of Adobe Illustrator.

Freepik

I am starting this list with Freepik as whilst it is a resource for free pictures (of any kind) including PSD’s and stock photos it also has a huge collection of free vector images for you to download. Over 100,000 of them in fact.

Finding images using Freepik is a breeze. The focus is on search so if you’re looking for a “monkey” just search “monkey vector” which should yield only the vector based imagery and disregard all of the stock photos and PSD’s. You can also access the vector section of the site directly where you’ll be presented with image categories such as Nature or Music or you can browse by purpose such as logo design templates or website templates etc.

Vecteezy

An extremely simple and easy to use website if you’re solely looking for free vector images is Vecteezy. Again, it’s search focused bu you can also browse the latest submissions should you want some ideas or inspiration for your project.

You can also browse by category and the categorisation is a level above the likes of Freepik as you can drill right down to something highly specific. For example, if you wanted to browse Food you can select specifics like Pizza or Salad or if you wanted specific usage you could browse Elements for Buttons and Arrows etc. Vecteezy makes it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.

FreeVector.com

A basic site in the scheme of things but definitely worthy of this list. Like with most it’s search focused so it would be better overall if you knew what you were looking for but alternatively you can browse categories in the traditional manner.

Whilst the categorisation is not as detailed or specific as the other sites in this list it is general enough so you should be able to find what you’re looking for.

One thing worth noting is that it does have a lot of featured content by Shutterstock, but these are clearly labeled at the top of the grid displaying the vectors so you should be able to differentiate between the two.

FlatIcon

FlatIcon.com boasts over 500,000 vector icons so if you’re looking for icons then this is definitely the site for you. All of the icons are easily searchable and most come as part of a “pack” – currently over 9,000 of them so whether you’re looking for a highly specific icon or you’re looking for an entire icon set for your website project you’ll probably find it at FlatIcon.com

Don’t be put off by the name either. They don’t just offer flat icons. You can find regular vectors including ones with effects such as gradients and shadows although we consider those a bit old school so you probably want to avoid them anyway.

FlatIcon boasts some great tools such as being able to choose the file type of each image and also re-size before download.

VectorStock

VectorStock is one of the biggest and best resources out there when it comes to vector images. They claim to have over 7,000,000 – that’s 7 MILLION images however keep in mind that only 117,000 of them are completely free. The rest are paid although compared to stock photo sites which charge the earth for each image, most of VectorStocks offering are $1 each so even if you do find your ideal image and it’s considered premium, it’s not going to break the bank.

VectorStock as well as the usual search and categorisation is also boasts some great filter features such as being able to sort by what’s popular or “trending” and you can also see ones which have been bought most frequently. This is usually a good quality indicator.

Credits

Some of the websites above will you require you to give a byline credit to the image designer on your website. Some may require you to link back to them also so you should keep this in mind before freely downloading any image you come across.

A lot of the websites above also offer paid/premium images too but they should be clearly labeled or in a different section entirely. But don’t let that put you off. There are more than enough free vector images available across all niches and sectors so you should be able to find what you’re looking for without too much effort.

I’m going to put together a similar list for free stock photos also which I’ll link from here.