graphics

The Mitr

Free Graphics Illustration Resources and Repositories

Finding a good and accurate graphic or illustration for your need is something that we all struggle with. On top of that if the requirement is that the graphic resource has to be free (as in freedom) then it further narrows down the options. Sometimes you see the graphic you want, but its license terms are unknown or are not agreeable to your work as they are not released freely. So what do you do? Either you use an illustration which is not perfect fit or you use one which breaks your resource (in terms of license).  But the problems is also that there are many free resource repositories which are very well not known. I have personally come across great many graphic resources, only to be forgotten after their current need is finished. This post is an attempt to overcome this. This post is a collection of various free graphics and illustration resources and repositories that I have found useful over the years. It is also a sort of personal bookmark list of the these resources if and when I need them in the future. I hope this will be of use to others too. I will keep on updating this list with new resources that I find. If you know of any resources which are missing please do post in the comments.

The Internet Archive Image Search https://archive.org/details/image

Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/

Open source illustrations kit https://illlustrations.co/

NYPL Public Domain Archive https://nypl.getarchive.net

David Rumsey Map Collection  https://www.davidrumsey.com/  also https://archive.org/details/david-rumsey-map-collection

Metropolitan Museum of Arts Public Domain Images also https://archive.org/details/metropolitanmuseumofart-gallery

Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access also https://archive.org/details/clevelandart

Brooklyn Museum also https://archive.org/details/brooklynmuseum

https://archive.org/details/bibliothequesaintegenevieve_image

Unsplash Free Images

NASA Images

ESO Images

Vintage Ads

Vintage Australian Print Ads

Vintage British Print Ads https://archive.org/details/vintage-british-magazine-ads

Vintage American Print Ads https://archive.org/details/vintage-american-print-ads

 

Vintage Danish Print Ads https://archive.org/details/vintage-danish-print-ads

https://archive.org/details/vintage-new-zealand-print-ads

https://archive.org/details/vintage-canadian-print-ads

https://archive.org/details/vintage-italian-print-ads

 

A library of microorganisms https://archive.org/details/cmpuj

 

National Gallery of Art also https://archive.org/details/national-gallery-of-art-images

Flickr Collections (there are several collections on Flickr which are openly licensed)

Flickr Commons

NOAA Photo Library https://flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/

 

 

 

The Mitr

The True Purpose Of Graphic Display – J. W. Tukey

John Wilder Tukey, one of the greatest Statistician of the last century points to what the purpose of a graphic display should be:

  1.  Graphics are for the qualitative/descriptive – conceivably the semi quantitative – never for the carefully quantitative (tables do that better).
  2. Graphics are for comparison – comparison of one kind or another – not for access to individual amounts.
  3. Graphics are for impact – interocular impact if possible, swinging-finger impact if that is the best one can do, or impact for the unexpected as a minimum – but almost never for something that has to be worked at hard to be perceived.
  4. Finally, graphics should report the results of careful data analysis – rather than be an attempt to replace it. (Exploration-to guide data analysis – can make essential interim use of graphics, but unless we are describing the exploration process rather than its results, the final graphic should build on the data analysis rather than the reverse.)

From:

Tukey, J. W. (1993). Graphic comparisons of several linked aspects: Alternatives and suggested principles. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 2(1), 1-33.