Poor quality, cheap graphics reflect poorly on your business—and they’re completely unnecessary. There are a number of excellent sources for reasonably priced, high-quality images for your site and collateral material.
You want “royalty-free” artworks and photography. This means that you can use the images on your website or in your print material without having to pay per each use. Pay once and use as needed with the following exception: you can’t resell the material or use it in a way that constitutes redistribution of the actual image for others to use.
The largest choice in royalty-free images is stock photography. The photographs may be used alone or as part of custom artwork. Stock illustrations can give a customized, high-impact look without the in-house graphics designer price. It’s also possible to take stock photographs and manipulate them in a graphics program (such as Photoshop, Painter, or Affinity Photo) to appear as if they were illustrations.
It pays to buy good quality images, but you don’t have to pay too much. Several of the larger, professional companies offer individual image prices. Remember, you want a consistent look-and-feel to the images of your website. Using a single illustrator or photographer can help create this consistency.
A Brief Word of Caution
Some inexpensive collections can be used effectively and creatively, but you must choose only images and fonts that are good quality and are consistent in style and tone. For example, do not mix 3D and flat images, contemporary and retro styles, or humorous and serious business aesthetics. It can be made to work with a great deal of effort, but the effort isn’t worth the cost. Find a consistent style that conveys confidence and dynamic visual authority.
Royalty Free Graphics Resources
Artville
They recently went entirely illustration—all of it by top professional artists. Artville is sold through various professional stock agencies. If you are planning or re-designing a site, one approach is to select a collection of illustrations from here and then design the rest of the site graphics around that style. It can save mistakes down the road and reduce the number of necessary design meetings.
iStockPhoto
These offer a mix of free and very low-cost high-quality photos and line illustrations. The site is a promotional center for assorted illustrators and photographers. The photos are mostly of objects, landscapes, and buildings (photos of people require legal releases), but if you need something contemporary and clean, you can find it here at an excellent price.
Corbis Images
There are some incredible, museum-quality historical and photojournalist images here available for both web and print use. Many are photos you’ve seen before in historical series.
Fonts.com
The go-to resource for professional typography, fonts, and related digital design tools. Having a strong, professional typeface is one of the most effective ways to establish design credibility.