Blog, Tools, 6 min read
Where designers find fonts, icons, photos and templates
The paid and free sources we use for fonts, icons, photos, illustrations and templates, how to respect licences, and how to keep it all consistent.
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A lot of what makes a design look finished is not the layout. It is the assets inside it: a typeface that suits the brand, icons that all look like they belong together, photos that feel real, an illustration that explains something faster than a paragraph could. Get those right and a simple layout looks considered. Get them wrong and even a good layout looks cheap.
Here is where we find them, which sources are free, which are worth paying for, and the rules we follow so the result looks consistent and stays legal.
A word on licences first
Every font, icon, photo and template comes with a licence, and the licence decides what you can do with it. Free does not always mean free for any use, and paid does not always mean you can use it everywhere.
Before you use an asset in client work, a product or anything you sell, check three things. Can it be used commercially? Does it need credit? Are there limits, such as not using it in a logo, not reselling it, or using it only in one project? Keep a note of where each asset came from. It takes a minute, and it saves a very awkward email later.
Fonts
Type does more for a brand than almost anything else, so we spend time here.
For free fonts, Google Fonts is the first stop. The library is large, the fonts are open source, and they work everywhere, including in Google Slides. Fontshare is another good free source, with a smaller, well chosen collection of modern typefaces.
For something more distinctive, a paid font from a type foundry is often worth it, especially for a logo or a brand that needs to stand out. Subscription libraries such as Envato Elements also include fonts, which is handy for campaigns and one off projects.
Two practical rules. First, check whether the font can be embedded or installed where it will be used, such as in PowerPoint files, on your website or in an app. Second, choose a safe fallback for office tools. If your brand font is not on everyone's laptop, presentations will swap it for a default, so we name a fallback in the brand guidelines and build templates with it.
Icons
Icons are where consistency matters most. Ten icons from ten different sets, with different line weights and corner styles, make a slide or a website look messy even if each icon is fine on its own.
Pick one set and stick to it. Free sets we like include Lucide, Phosphor and Heroicons. They are clean, consistent and come in several weights. For more illustrative or industry specific icons, Envato Elements and Canva both have large libraries, but check that the style matches before you mix them in.
If a brand uses icons heavily, it is often worth having a small custom set drawn, so the icons feel like part of the identity rather than something borrowed.
Photos
Good photography makes a brand feel real. Generic stock photography, people in suits shaking hands, smiling at laptops, pointing at whiteboards, does the opposite.
For free photos, Unsplash and Pexels have huge libraries of high quality images. Search for specific, ordinary moments rather than abstract business ideas, and you will find photos that feel far less like stock. Envato Elements and Canva also include photo libraries, which is useful when you are already working there.
Best of all, if you can, use your own. Real photos of your team, your product, your office and your customers beat stock every time. A half day shoot with a good photographer can supply a website, a deck and a year of social posts.
Illustrations and graphics
Illustration is useful for explaining ideas that have no obvious photo, such as a process, a system or a feeling. Free collections exist, but the most used ones appear on many sites, so your page may look like several others.
Envato Elements is our usual source for illustration packs and graphic elements, because there is a lot of choice and the style of a pack is consistent across all its pieces. For anything central to the brand, we prefer to draw custom illustrations, so nobody else has the same ones.
Mockups
When you show a website, an app or a printed piece to a client or an investor, a good mockup helps them picture it in the real world: a laptop, a phone, a business card on a desk, a poster on a wall. Mockup files let you drop your design into a ready made scene.
Envato Elements has a wide range of device and print mockups, and the Figma community has many free ones. Use them with care. A mockup should make the work easier to understand, not distract from it. One clean scene per piece is usually enough, and the design itself should stay sharp and readable.
Templates
Templates for presentations, social posts, documents and websites can save a lot of time, as long as you treat them as a starting point.
Canva has a huge range of templates for social media, documents and simple decks, and it is easy for a whole team to use. Envato Elements has a large library of PowerPoint, Keynote and Google Slides templates, plus website and print templates. When we use a template, we usually take its structure and replace almost everything else: colours, fonts, imagery and layout details, so the result looks like your brand, not like the template.
Keeping it all consistent
The difference between assets that look designed and assets that look collected is a few simple rules.
- One type family for headings and one for body text, at most.
- One icon set, in one weight.
- One photography style: similar light, colour and mood.
- Brand colours applied to icons and illustrations, not their default colours.
- A shared folder where approved assets live, so nobody hunts through downloads.
Write these down in your brand guidelines, even if it is a single page. It saves every future designer, freelancer or team member from guessing.
When to do it yourself
Sourcing assets yourself works well when:
- You are making internal documents, social posts or simple decks.
- You have a clear brand already, with colours and fonts chosen.
- You are happy to stick to one or two sources and follow the rules above.
- The work does not need custom illustration or photography.
Free sources plus a Canva or Envato Elements subscription will cover most everyday needs.
When to hire a studio
It is worth bringing in a designer when:
- You are building or refreshing a brand and need the typefaces, icon style and imagery chosen as one system.
- Your materials look inconsistent and you are not sure why.
- You need custom icons, illustrations or a photo direction that nobody else has.
- You are launching something important and want it to look like one company across the website, decks and social.
We do this as part of our brand identity work, and we bring the same assets into decks, websites and templates so everything matches. If you want to start with the basics, our logo and brand identity guidelines package covers the system and the guidelines that keep it consistent. And if you want to see how your current deck holds up, try our free deck design check.