Icons
If You only use a few icons a year and they don’t have to be perfect
On IconFinder.com you can filter your results to only show Free icons with “No Link Back.” There won’t be a ton of choices, but there should be some for whatever you’re looking for.
If You only use a few icons a year but they need to be perfect
The paid icons on IconFinder.com only cost about $2 each. They also have a pretty good icon editing tool in which you can change the color and add or delete certain elements.
You use more than 20 icons a year.
My icon shop of choice is TheNounProject.com. For only $40/year you can download as many icons as you want and use them any way you want—without attribution. You can also customize the color of the icons on the site, but there is not much built-in editing beyond that.
Photos
Largest selection
Two of the biggest free image sites, Pixabay and Pexels, were bought by Canva this year. So, you can just search Canva.com/photos and filter by Free to see everything available.
High quality with hipster vibe
Quirkiest
What makes a good stock image:
No cheese
Based in reality
Looks like the people you serve
What’s the deal with attribution?
A lot of icons and images you find on various sites look like they’re free at first, but then you find that you have to credit the author. And sure, there’s virtually no way for them to know if you do that, but you should because you’re a good person. The better option is to find free icons and images that don’t ask for attribution.
Pro Tip: If you don’t want to pay for an icon, make sure it says, “Free for commercial use” or “No Link Back.”
Pro Tip: On IconFinder.com you can also filter by type of icon—solid black (glyph), outline, filled outline, etc.
Pro Tip: If you need to find an icon for a more abstract concept, try searching first on google for “your abstract concept icon.” That will give you some ideas of what other people are using to illustrate the point. Then take that more specific noun (hopefully!) and search for it on the icon site.
Pro Tip: If you use a lot of stock images and don’t mind paying, Canva also has a new unlimited download subscription for only $13/month. If you only need a few per year, the standard images at sites like iStock.com only cost about $11 each.