Want more free images for your eLearning or PowerPoint presentations? How about over a MILLION more? In December of last year, the British Library released into the public domain a huge collection of scanned images from more than 65,000 books spanning the 16th to 19th centuries. Yes, that's right, I said public domain. That means these images are free to use, share, and modify in any way that you see fit. The library asks only that you help to populate the metadata for the images to help make them more easily searchable–and to help spread the knowledge.
The project is called the Mechanical Curator and is housed on a tumblr page that purports to post a randomly selected small illustration or ornamentation from these antiquated books. All of the images can be found on the British Library's flickr feed.
Think these images are a little too old school for anything you'll be designing? Think again. Just for funsies I threw together a little eLearning layout by using the British Library's free images. Here's what I came up with:
The great thing about these images is that most all of them go together cohesively. And that "B" I used? I was able to find every letter I searched for, in a variety of styles. That could lead to endless designs… for free! Design on, friends.
See also:
What a fun layout you put together! Especially like the bows for back and next!
What a fun layout you put together! Especially like the bows for back and next!
What a fun layout you put together! Especially like the bows for back and next!
thanks Karen!
thanks Karen!
thanks Karen!