We all want to make digital stuff that looks great, is easy to use, and loads fast.
One important part of making websites and apps that are kind to the environment is using fewer pictures. I’m not saying “don’t use any pictures at all.” I use them sometimes too. But there are other cool ways to make your websites and apps look awesome without using a lot of pictures. So, how can we use fewer pictures without making our website look plain and boring?
One way to use fewer pictures is to use drawings and little pictures called icons instead. Both drawings and icons use less data, which makes your website load faster. And when your website loads faster, it’s better for the environment and can even help your website show up higher in search results.
Look at the Best Illustrations for Sustainable Web Design
My favorite Illustrations for Sustainable Web Design
There are incredible illustration libraries, packs and sets out there that you can use for free or a small amount. Brilliant designers share them on all kinds of platforms to support other designers as well as to get their work out there. Attributions are always great (sharing love) and sometimes even required. More about the attribution requirements can always be found on the websites themselves.
Iconscout
Iconscout is a marketplace for icons and illustrations that you can download for free or purchase as premium versions. There’s a wide variety of styles and topics available on the platform. Simply select your favorites and use them as you like!
Blush
Blush is an incredible library with free illustration packs, such as Open Doodles, Fresh Folk or Humaaans. You can playfully mix and match the illustrations according to your needs.
Charco
It’s quite a unique set with a mixture of design styles. Charco.Designs has even more free and premium illustrations and design elements to offer on their full illustrations page.
Drawkit
Drawkit has plenty of free and premium illustration packs at display. They cover tons of different business and private aspects as well as design styles. I really love it.
LS Graphics
LS Graphics offers a couple of free and paid illustration kits. They cover various styles, themes and topics.
Absurd
Absurd covers amazing hand-drawn, black and white illustrations done by Barcelona based designer Diana Valeanu. You can download the illustrations on the website for free (with attribution).
Scribbbles
You fancy some more abstract design elements? Go with Scribbbles, a collection of funky vector graphics. They are fully customizable and will definitely bring every digital product to life.
UnDraw
UnDraw is a free and super easily customizable collection of illustrations. You can change the colors with the color switch in the header and can download the elements as SVGs or PNGs.
Error404
You ever wondered what to put on your 404 page? Error404 comes up with lovely free illustrations you can use for your website.
Checkout few more Illustrations for Sustainable Web Design
- Stubborn: Compose vector characters and scenes by putting together various pre-made illustrations. All for free.
- Open Peeps: Similar to Stubborn, Open Peeps helps to compose vector characters. It comes with hundreds of different components to design black and white hand-drawn avatars.
- Big Heads: Looking for a different kind of avatar? Combine expressions, clothing, hair styles and colors into quite colorful and playful characters.
- Unsplash: Browse the popular photo library Unsplash with the tag “illustration” and find awesome illustrated artwork.
- Dribbble: Find free and paid illustrations in the incredibly huge Dribbble marketplace.
- The18 Design: Explore this marketplace with free and premium illustration packs.
- Streamline: Grab the Streamline illustrations for free or customize them with the Streamline premium features.
- Skribbl: A website offering a growing collection of illustrations, created by a global community of artists.
