10 Free or Cheap Artwork Resources for Musicians and Producers


Musicians and producers need good artwork. Whether it's for an album cover, flyer, poster, t-shirt, website, or whatever; it's a priority. The problem typically boils down to money but lack of money doesn't have to limit you to shitty art work.

There are many free or cheap options available to get quality artwork or graphic designs for whatever needs you may have. Here are 10 resources to help musicians and producers either create artwork themselves, get image/graphic assets and find artists to create designs for them.

GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program (Free)
This program is an open source version of Photoshop. It works great for all sorts of graphic design needs or image enhancements. GIMP runs on Windows, OS X, GNU/Linux, and more operating systems.

CANVA (Free)
This website is basically like a browser based graphic design creator. There are a lot of customizable templates for social media, album covers, documents, blogging, headers, marketing material, events, ads and more. It works very well for people that have little experience in graphic design because it's so simple to use.

Pixlr (Free)
This another browser based graphic design creator but a little bit more advanced. It's comparable to Photoshop or GIMP in the sense you have more control over images, and you can manipulate them with effects and layers.

Pexels (Free)
This is creative commons images website where you can modify, copy, or distribute photos. You can use these images for commercial purposes and attribution is not required. There are a lot of quality photos to choose from and there is bound to be something you like.

Pixabay (Free)
This is another great creative commons community with over 1 million assets to choose from. They offer photos, vector graphics, illustrations, and video which you can use for commercial projects.

Creative Commons (Free)
This is not really an images website, but a tool to help find creative commons images. You can specify by keyword what type of image you are looking for and whether or not the license allows for commercial use.

Pond5 (Free) The Public Domain Project
If you're looking for some vintage images, the public domain image library at Pond5 probably has what you need. There are over 60,000 free images to choose from and there is also free footage, audio, and 3d models that you can use for anything.

PhotoDune (Starting at $2)
This is a great market for royalty free images. The images look great and their is a wide variety to choose from. They also offer free assets from the Envato Network every month which includes video, wordpress themes, plugins, after effects templates and more.

Fiverr (Starting at $5)
This market is great for musicians and producers on a shoe string budget. There are many excellent contributors to help you with graphic design, music videos, marketing, promotion, and all sorts of music related gigs. All the services offered are rated and it's very easy to find an artist to help you with whatever need you may have.

DizzyJam (Free)
This is a great merchandise resource to help musicians and producers sell t-shirts, hoodies, and swag online. It doesn't cost anything to create a store and is very simple to use. Basically, you upload your design and DizzyJam does the rest. You set the price and they create a shirt and ship it when someone orders from you.

Hopefully this list helps take your visual game to the next level. Remember though, if you do get into a position where you can support these artists, it's important that you do. Free is great when money is tight or when your getting started, but these people need to eat too. Us creative types have to stick together!

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share, like and comment below.

1 comment:

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