27 Indespensible Resources for Graphic Designers

Graphic designers are always in a battle to create the best looking results in the least amount of time. Constantly trying to make these gorgeous, polished designs without spending an eternity creating them usually requires using some pre-built elements — things like photoshop brushes, illustrator patterns, textures, etc… In this list, we’ve compiled some of the best brushes, patterns, textures, fonts, and vectors that will help make your graphic design life a bit easier. Read on for more.

Photoshop Brushes

60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources Another collection of collections, but there are some great brushes listed in the brushes section… you’ll find some other great Photoshop resources as well. 350+ Retro and Vintage Photoshop Brushes All vintage and retro designs in this post, but it links to DesignM.ag’s other brush resources, including flowers, space brushes, and more! 20+ Photoshop Painted Inspiration and Brush Resources Includes a section of great Photoshop Brushes as well as other Photoshop resources.

Illustrator Brushes

80 Best-Of Adobe Illustrator Tutorials, Brushes, .EPSs and Resources This is noupe’s illustrator counterpart to their “60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources.” Once again, a long list of useful information. 45 Excellent Sets of Adobe Illustrator Brushes A ton of paintbrush-like brushes, with some floral and geometric brushes as well. 28 Free Illustrator Brushes for making Swooshes and Swirls The title says it all. More BittBox illustrator brushes, photoshop brushes, patterns, textures and more can be found here. 81 Amazing Argyle Illustrator Brushes If you’re looking for argyle brushes, this is definitely the right resource – COLORBURNED also has a ton of other illustrator brushes here.

Textures

50+ High Resolution Textures, Tutorials and Resources This post showcases some great textures, including some grunge, paisley, geometric designs, natural textures, and more. 101 Free Rock and Stone Textures Includes textures for both natural and colorful rocks and stones. A great place if you’re looking for either. Design Resources Pack #1: The Grunge Pack, Brushes, Fonts, Textures etc… Includes textures, fonts and brushes — all in the grunge style. Arbenting’s Texture Freebies This lists all of the site’s free textures, including stones, grunge, fabrics, wood, and abstracts.

Patterns

The Showcase of Brilliant Pattern Designs A great showcase to get your creative juices flowing. 450+ Abobe Illustrator Patterns A lot of beautiful patterns for any design need. The ultimate photoshop resource list part 2: patterns + textures Links to lots of different patterns and textures, plus some tutorials.

Fonts

80 Beautiful Typefaces for Professional Design The title says it all: lots of different typefaces with a preview of each so that you can easily see if the font is a perfect match. 40+ Excellent Free Fonts for Professional Design This is a follow up to SmashingMag’s other extremely large font presentation, except these are all free! 50+ Fonts for Big, Bold Headlines If you’re looking for some bold fonts, here’s the place to go. Includes font previews and links. 30 Fonts That ALL Designers Must Know & Should Own It’s always good to get back to basics – here are Just Creative Design’s suggestions.

Icons

35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets Dinosaurs, sunny-side up eggs, and elephants are just some of the great free icon sets showcased here. Tools Icons, Horror Icons and Twitter Icons Three great icon sets provided free of charge by Smashing Magazine. VECTORTUTS Freebie: 17 Exclusive Web Icons A great set of general icons. Free Icons: Function Icon Set, 128 Completely Free Icons You may have seen this collection before, but it had to be included in this list of icon resources! Freebies: A Social Media Icon Set Just For You! Arbenting’s icon set for social media – also includes 15 Photoshop brushes. Free Hand Drawn Doodle Icon Set for Bloggers Some really neat, hand drawn icons.

Vectors

The Ultimate Collection of Free Vector Packs This features 60 free vector packs, from ribbons and circles to dinosaurs and birds. There’s just a load of good stuff here. Logo Tools 1 (remix) A great, free set of vectors with lots of different silhouettes. Free Vector Swirls and Twirls Pack Just Creative Design’s free vector pack.