Does modern-day (free) Clipart exist?

September 10, 2019 11:42 AM

Where would one find modern day clip-art? I'm looking for punchy, action-oriented, cohesive, clean, simple infographic icons that depict business process oriented action words like "send", "receive", "review", "schedule" etc. etc. This would be for use in a standard operating procedure manual. If this were the 90s I'd find something simple and halfway decent in clipart, but it looks like clippie bit the dust a while back.

I'm not unwilling to create my own vector images if need be, but feel that starting from scratch on this isn't the best use of my time. Ideally there would be some free source of simple, round icons that I could just utilize. Would this require purchasing stock images? Does Clipart still exist from Microsoft in a different modality? Could you point me to a website that utilizes this type of iconography effectively? Or, if I do need to make my own graphics, is there a good how-to that you know of for this specific type of infographic icon?

posted by seemoorglass to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Best answer: The Noun Project
posted by wsquared at 11:44 AM on September 10, 2019 [28 favorites]

Google’s Material Icons: https://materialdesignicons.com
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:51 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Noun Project is my go-to for presentations. Often you can find a "pack" that are all done by one person which can be great. For business stuff, sometimes you can poke around and find what you want in Wikimedia Commons' Illustrations category (which superseded their 'clip art' category)
posted by jessamyn at 11:51 AM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I often use Font Awesome for this
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:52 AM on September 10, 2019 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I use Pixabay. Search "icons" under "illustrations" and you'll find a lot - royalty-free and free for commercial use if needed.
posted by nkknkk at 12:22 PM on September 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

Adobe Stock has acres of this exactly. Some Adobe subscriptions come with a number of free download credits each month. Search for “vector process icons”.
posted by chuke at 12:24 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seconding Font Awesome.
posted by jquinby at 12:31 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Iconmonstr is my go-to, for totally free and requiring no login. The "download as png" option lets you select hex colour codes and fill options as well.

Seconding The Noun Project as well.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:32 PM on September 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

For example, I've used some of these ones from iconmonstr for "schedule" in more business documents and presentations than I can count.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:35 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My go-to for this is Flat Icon. They allow you to choose what color you want to download in (just enter the hex code if you need a specialty color) as well as the size of the image. They are all PNG files with transparent backgrounds. It's geared toward users looking for icons/images of business processes.
posted by caveatz at 1:11 PM on September 10, 2019 [6 favorites]

I came here to say noun project. I've been using it for years for all kinds of things, even pretty abstract concepts that I was sure I wouldn't be able to find, and it's never once let me down.
posted by bleep at 3:01 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Depending on the sizes/colors/feel, you might like Ouch.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 6:09 PM on September 10, 2019 [1 favorite]