Every day we are bombarded with commercial and professional designs that leverage clipart. This article looks at the history of this design technique, how to use it, and some common questions about clipart usage. Clipart is a graphic design technique that typically involves taking an existing image from a database and placing it into another image. Though it is technically outside the realm of IMAGINiT’s skillset, this article should provide you with enough information about the topic to adequately put together your graphics.
What is Clip Art?
Clip art was originally referred to as a physical magazine or book containing images that could be clipped out and used in scrapbooks or other activities like home decoration. Over time, clip art has come to refer to the digital images used today. These digital images are typically created by a commercial entity that owns the rights to use them. These images can be used in your projects with proper licensing (more on this later). It’s important to remember that if you are designing graphics for a client, they should be consulted before any usage of clipart takes place. If you work in an office, it is likely that you will have access to some kind of clipart library.
What is FONTS CLIP ART?
Clipart can be broken up into two categories: fonts and images. A font clipart set generally contains only the letters of the alphabet, numbers, and punctuation marks, but no images. In contrast, image clipart contains a variety of things including images, logos, abstract designs, and shapes. The amount of clipart to be used in a given project will largely depend on the client’s needs as well as your tastes.
How Do I Use Clip Art?
There are two ways to use clip art in your graphics: converting an image or using it as a text element. When using images from a font or photo library, you will typically click on the image and drag it into the document. Once placed, you can resize and crop to your heart’s content.
If the clipart doesn’t have an easily identifiable shape, you can use patterns to make the elements more recognizable. The simpler clip arts are often already made as shapes such as circles or squares; building a rectangle out of these pieces is easy enough. Once the clipart is in place, you can add other elements like text or images to make sure the design is working with the overall theme.
How Do I Know Which Clip Art Can be Used?
Many companies will provide you with a licensing agreement that has information about what can and cannot be done with their images. These agreements are intended to protect both the company and the user, but they can sometimes be confusing. If you have any questions, it may be worth having your company’s legal department take a look at them. If your company doesn’t have a legal department, it is always worth giving them a call.
Many of the images on the market can be used as-is. Others will have explanations on how the image can be used to avoid any legal problems. If your company already has a library of images, then you may have a quick reference guide to refer back to. Once you know what is and isn’t allowed, check your company’s internal standards for graphics. Your guidelines may also limit the amount of clipart that you can use in a design as well as where it can be placed. For example, many companies have a strict “no clipart” policy on Web sites or other design elements that will be viewed by the general public.
How do I get Free Clip Art Images?
Clip art licensing is a messy business. If you aren't paying for it, then you're free to use it, but don't expect to find either a license or attribution information anywhere on the site. Look around other sites with clipart; they may have more usable images than the company that owns the image.
Conclusion
There is a ton of information out there on the internet that you can use to help prepare your designs. However, the best place to start is with the original article by Teena, who has put together an excellent summary of this topic. She also offers other resources including some clipart images that she has uploaded for use with her site. I have intentionally left a lot of space between these questions as it is best to do a little research and figure out for yourself which clips are available and how much space they take up in an image. We are all different, and we will all have our ideas about how to incorporate clipart into our work.
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