Graphic Design

Dr. Marilyn Spock, NYC. Image courtesy Flickr Commons.

Graphic artists and designers often use images differently from other disciplines. While artists and art historians look to other artists and art movements, graphic artists and designers use images as raw material to manipulate. As a result, graphic designers need access to images from a wider range of resources; resources from which they can easily copy, cut, and paste.

Flickr Commons Project  A joint venture of Flickr and the Library of Congress. Contributors include the Library of Congress, the George Eastman House, the Getty Institute, the Foundation Gulbenkian, the NY Public Library, the Center for Jewish History, the National Archives UK, among others. Massive collection!

MorgueFile  A public image archive "for creatives by creatives." Free images for inspiration, reference, and for use in creative work.

Creative Commons Site for digital content creators to license their work for use by others, and to search for work that is available to use. There are multiple creative commons licenses so be sure you search for images appropriate for your use.

NASA Image Gallery Links to astronomical images from a variety of government and research sources.

Library of Congress Prints and Photograph Collection Millions of digital images on architecture, design and engineering, among other categories. A motherlode for US historical material, including Civil war photographs, cartoons, advertising, historical buildings, stereographic cards, etc.

American Memory Project  A gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the US. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections from the Library of Congress.

Public Health Image Library (PHIL)  A searchable database of photographs, micrographs, and illustrations relating to public health. Most images are public domain, some are copyrighted and require permission for use.

Everystockphoto A search engine for freely licensed photos, from many sources presented in an integrated search. These come from many sources and are license-specific. 

Fair use is generally defined as the allowance to use copyrighted material in a fair manner without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. For educational purposes (research papers, classroom presentations, etc.) always cite the original work! This may take the form of in–text citations, a references page, an addendum to presentation, etc. If you are planning to use your work beyond the classroom (educational), on the web, for commercial (for-profit) purposes, etc., you should obtain permission from the copyright holder for all copyrighted works used in your work (including derivative uses); not obtaining permission is a violation of US copyright.

There are four factors that impact the justification for Fair Use (Section 107 of US Copyright Law).

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes. This refers to:
Whether the work is for educational use, whether there is profit from the use of the work, whether the use is credited (cited), level of access to the work, whether the use is for criticism, commentary, or news reporting, how derivative the use of the work is.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work. This refers to:
Whether the work is published, how creative the original work is, whether the work is fiction or non-fiction.

3. Amount and substance of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. This refers to:
How much of the original work is used, how important the portion used is to the original work.

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. This refers to:
Whether the use will impede or prevent the copyright holder from profiting from their work.

A good rule of thumb is to check a website for specific guidelines on permissions. Websites with image content that is copyrighted will usually state the parameters that they consider fair use for their content. Read this information to better understand how to cite the content you are using. Again, always cite your sources.

This page was adapted from the site on Visual Resources developed by Dan McClure and Tricia Juettemeyer at : http://sites.google.com/site/budgetvr/