Free Clipart
The many services available for even the newest of computer users,
has made it incredibly easy to create attractive personal web sites,
distinctive business sites and more, all without needing the services
or skills of a master web designer.
Many consumers are lost when it comes to how they can lay out and
plan a site that is both visually appealing and contains the information
they want to share with others. They may have all the text material,
but what is there to use that can brighten up a page, and draw the
eye of casual surfers, so that they stay and browse the site, further?
One option, is to utilize free clipart. These are small images,
usually in .gif or .jpeg format, that are not copyrighted, and which
are available free on many graphic sites, to use on your own web
page. The larger and more comprehensive graphics sites will break
their clipart down into categories such as professions, animals,
learning, homes, vehicles, and more. Some will go further and break
the main categories down into sub-categories, eg. Animals: cats,
dogs, horses, pigs, cows, etc. That enables you to find what you
want, faster.
How do you decide what free clipart best suits your web page? You
might start out by creating several folders on your hard drive where
you can save sets of clipart images by file type, subject, or style.
Once you have enough for comparison purposes, you can either open
them in a program such as Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop, and
see if they are what you want, or you can take a web page building
program and drop them onto your page, to see how they look.
One tip with regard to collecting free clipart for a specific page
of your own, is to see whether the file type is compatible with
other files you are using. For example, sometimes a .gif file placed
on top of a .jpeg background, does not come out as crisp as it should.
You then have the option of choosing another piece of art, or possibly
converting the file to a .jpeg image by increasing the color depth.
Whether you are creating a personal or business site, free web
templates can be a great way to start out, giving you a pre-designed
lay out where you can simply enter the text and free clipart that
you want to display or demonstrate your material.
Except for areas or pages where a larger image is called for, such
as a logo at the top of the landing page, try for consistency of
style and size in your clipart. A page can look “slapped together”
if it has a number of graphics that run the gamut from very small
to very large, and from cartoon-like appearance, to black &
white outlines.
Free clipart saves you the agony of trying to create your own images,
or searching for photos to go with the text. Not only is it great
for websites, but clipart is also an excellent complement to business
or even scholastic documents, where images can accompany titles,
sections on particular topics, or serve as visual punctuation. |
