Study Guides: Visual Communication: Images

Where to find images

It's important that you look for images in the correct places (don't just do a Google image search!) to make sure that the images you find are high-quality and easy to reference. Below are some recommended sources to find images.

Image databases

The Library subscribes to several image databases with high-quality images that you can search for. There are also free databases online which have a range of images you can search.

General image databases

ArtStor Contains photographs of buildings, furnishings and some building plans, as well as art and design objects going back to prehistory.
Oxford Art Online An encyclopedia of art-related subjects & topics. It also includes images.
Art & Architecture Complete This database has thousands of journals & images on design and architecture.
Trove (National Library of Australia) A collection containing resources from libraries & institutions all around Australia including books, articles, magazines, images, maps & artefacts.
Flickr An online source of photographs from around the world. Content is shared under Creative Commons licence.
Getty Images A wide collection of creative and editorial images.

Discipline-specific image databases

Underground Comics A database of comic books & graphic novels. Also includes books, journal & magazine articles, interviews, commentaries, critiques and reviews.
WGSN A database that contains reports, analyses, news, images & more about fashion, textiles & clothing.
WGSN LIfestyle and Interiors Not just an image database WGSN contains magazine style articles covering trends in interior design, furnishings and new materials and technologies.
Statista Contains data & statistics. Great for finding graphs, charts & infographics.
Birkhauser Building Types Online Birkhauser contains a page of info, specs, images and plans for thousands of buildings worldwide. It's easy to use and lets you refine your search by building type. possibly swap this with taylor and francis
ArchDaily An architecture website with lots of images of buildings, interiors & building features & products.

Websites

Searching or browsing websites with image collections is a good way of finding stock images, graphs, diagrams & infographics.

Stock images & videos

Open clip art Clip art openly available on the web.
Startup stock photos Website of stock photos that are under CC0 licence - in the public domain.
Picjumbo Website containing lots of free stock photos, high-resolution images & backgrounds.
Pexels Free images & videos available online.
Pixabay Free images online.
Hero Patterns A collection of repeatable SVG background patterns to use on web projects.

Graphs & infographics

Government bodies & organisations often produce graphs & infographics from data and statistics they've gathered. Searching those government & organisation websites can help with locating images on the topic you're researching.

World Health Organisation Infographics Infographics from the World Health Organisation (WHO) covering topics such as health, diseases, natural disasters and palliative care.
CDC Infographics Infographics for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
ArchDaily Architecture Infographics Articles containing achitecture related infographics covering layout guides & architectural materials.

Visual Communication: Images