I am new to Android development. I can see a lot of free icons out there, but I am looking for free images to use as backdrop for apps …etc.
Google didn’t help much. Do developers here create their own? Or is there some free libraries of images/backgrounds suitable for Android out there?
Thx
I either create my own, find public domain images or other images that are licensed for commercial use. I suck at photoshop, but I am getting better and most of the time I find a public domain image and then use that as a base layer to create my own image.
You’ve got three options really. Make your own graphics, hire an external developer to do them for you, or search for royalty-free graphics created by someone else which you can use.
It takes a bit of persistence to find these with Google, but they can be found 
Here’s a few sites which I’ve discovered in the past couple of years and found useful:
[ul]
[li]Dreamstime
[/li][li]Stock.xchng
[/li][li]List: 15 Best Places for Designers to get Free Stock Photos
[/li][/ul]
That’s not many sites, but hopefully a start. If anyone else can add input that would be great. I’m sure there are more free image sites out there, but I have a hard time finding them myself.
One thing to be aware of - a lot of sites require some kind of acknowledgement for you to use their picture commercially. Make sure you read the terms of use carefully, and stick to the rules. Not every free picture is necessarily royalty-free and attribution-free.
I can’t sing the praises of Inkscape enough. If you’re looking to generate neat images but don’t necessarily feel you have the artistic talent yourself (and this can go for patterned backgrounds as well as smaller assets) then you can’t really go wrong with vector graphics.
While not free, I’ve recently found www.crestock.com which has images from $1 each, and the license allows for use in apps (most other stock image sites don’t allow apps for the cheap sales, they require an extended license for $50+)
http://www.iconarchive.com/ can also be useful for iconsets, BUT note that they aren’t all free, check the licensing for any iconset before you use it.
Normally if I need an icon of some sort, I just google for it to get an idea what they look like and then use inkscape to built something similar … combined with gimp you can create nice looking graphics.
sadly I am not a pro in terms aof graphics … for some of my games (not released yet) I do need a huge amount of time for jut making the graphics … nearly every day I think about hiring a graphican haha
I deal situation is to become friends with a graphic artist and trade services. He makes graphics for you and you write code for one of his app ideas. Its a win for both of you.
I make all of my graphics myself. Icons, backgrounds, logos, banners, webpage designs.
My advise is to take some time to learn a few tools, inkscape and gimp or illustrator and photoshop. Last two are a bit more powerfull but are expencive to buy, inkscape and the gimp are free but are a bit more difficult to learn.
Buy two books on the subject and look for tutorials. It will be an investment at first but will pay off in the long run. You can then make everything you want and do not have to pay for it. Of course if you have limited time then it might just be more efficent to buy icons and search for royalty free backgrounds. Because even if you know the appications well one icon can still take a few hours to create.
One addition to this, as I’ve just been tidying up my development and deployment process, is that it’s worth looking at writing some batch scripting for any of the apps that support it. If you’re generating a lot of images for an app (say sprites for a game) then it can save you a lot of time to regenerate the right images when you’ve made a change to the file you’re using to design.
For example, I currently have all of my Inkscape svg and static png files in a folder tree that I use to edit in. When I’ve made changes I kick off my script and this’ll go to each subfolder, export all svg files to png, copy all the raw files to an output directory and run them through TexturePackerPro to create sprite sheets (in multiple levels of size / quality). Will try to write up more details on this and post this week.
I would also add graphic river to that list for a place to get good quality graphics. The prices aren’t too bad for the quality of work there. Everything is run through a quality check. I’ve bought from there before.
This week, this month. Close enough. Wrote up a little explanation of what I did to automate my image output and why I did it. Don’t go into great details on the actual commands used (as anyone can dig into the command line) but I have included the basic batch file created for the purpose.
http://floor4.co.uk/2012/04/16/spending-time-to-save-time-automating-my-builds/
Hello.
I develop small apps, and this url may help you
Both are free to use the icons and graphics.
I also use google to find free sprites. Another good source its try to search graphics for rpg maker, a big community do graphics for rpg maker.
This is good too
http://www.clker.com/
Unity has an asset store, if you would rather buy graphics than spend the time to make them yourself. They are not free graphics but are very good. http://unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/
http://openclipart.org - a lots of SVG files, look at top downloads - there are the best ones. All are public domain, so very easy to use.
A couple more…
Free:
http://cliparts101.com/
Variable Licenses:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
I use the freelancers at http://forums.digitalpoint.com in the Business -> Buy, Sell, Or Trade, -> Contests section. It’s an internet marketing forum, so you have to ignore all the crap, but they have some really talented people that do good work. I’ve always gone there and had good luck.
The apps design is the main thing to keep in mind when developing an android app keep in mind that the design of app will be the reason for its success so create attractive layouts choose beautiful colors this will make an app more attractive and successful
Either you can create them by yourself by using image-creating software or you can use free images from no copyright sites.