Top 5 websites for making free church graphics

I was asked after a recent sermon where I got the graphics from the PowerPoint and sermon handout. Here’s my answer that I emailed to the staff and leaders at Willoughby. Copied below for your convenience.

pic from http://www.creativemyk.com/gallery.aspx?id=3891

  1. www.creativemyk.com – some of the gear on here is a little bit cheesy, but there’s plenty of good stuff. I just subscribe to it via RSS (What  the heck is rss?) and anytime I see a good one, I download and store in folder on my computer.
  2. www.sxc.hu – good range of free stock photos – they are also royalty free – so if you publish a book – you can use their pics without giving royalties. They’ve also got a good paid service – but I think there’s enough good stuff you don’t need to pay coin
  3. www.simplyyouthministry.com – there are some very very very cool backgrounds on here. Download all their folders, unzip them – and then put them into one gallery on your hard drive for quick viewing. The newer ones are better than the older ones (ie – the ones from 2002 are increasingly uncool design!!)
  4. www.stufficanuse.com – these guys have some fully pimped gear. You can download photoshop files etc.
  5. www.dafont.com – there are lots of really bad font sites online – and plenty that have annoying pop-ups. This site has some good gear and no pop-ups. I typically won’t download the ones that are “free for personal use only” – ie I’ll get the ones that the licence allows using on church material without having to buy the font.
  6. www.irfanview.com – yeah I know this makes 6, but this isn’t strictly somewhere to download gear. I have some sweet design software (adobe creative suite) – but often for something quick – I’ll just use PowerPoint. Put some fonts on your background – copy all – and then paste it into irfanview – you can easily crop and then save as JPEG (or any other number of file names).

Hope this is useful!

14 Replies to “Top 5 websites for making free church graphics”

  1. Not really to be honest. For fonts it’s pretty much always daFont (such a good range, and really easy to search through when you’re after a particular type of font). For images I like the diversity that CreativeMYK has. Whilst there’s quite a bit that I’d never touch, there’s a fair amount of good stuff, and even a reasonable number that provide the .psd file. Either that or pics that I’ve taken myself.

    Oh and yay me. This is comment #7000!

  2. Thanks for the link Paul. Looks like there’s some great stuff (even in the free volume). I’m downloading volume 1 right now!

  3. hey bro
    Looking to get some Student-discounted Creative Suite gear… any recommendations?
    What do you do the bulk of your work in?

    I’ve never used anything like Illustrator… pretty much I’ve used Photoshop-type applications all my life. At the moment I use the GIMP, which is functional but pretty frustrating.

    I could get Photoshop CS4 Extended V11 for $195. But for $200 more, I could also get InDesign, Illustrator, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks.

    Any single one of those would cost more than $200 alone, so I guess the question is… do I just get Photoshop or do I spring for the Suite?

    What do you think?

  4. yo man – sorry for slow reply.

    What do you do the bulk of your work in?

    surprisingly, i use PowerPoint, Publisher and Irfanview for quick things.

    regarding which adobe gear i use.

    i’ll use photoshop to play with photos.
    but if i’m making a postcard – i’ll normally use InDesign.
    i’ve also used Illustrator for some logos.
    i’ve also had a bit of a play with flash – one day when i have a spare day (unlikely) i’d love to learn it.

    soooo… photoshop is essential – but if you can afford it – get the lot. i probably even use indesign more than PS?
    i reckon that the amount of gear you get in the student pack for $400 is worth the cash.

    is that helpful?

  5. Hey really inspirational design indeed. I really appreciate the originality of designs in real creativity. I am also working on my new logo project. Thanks for sharing it will surely help me alot.

  6. Hey really inspirational design indeed. I really appreciate the originality of designs in real creativity.

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