17 of the Best Free Retro & Vintage Design Resources

17 of the Best Free Retro & Vintage Design Resources

The internet is awash with free retro and vintage resources for designers and illustrators, but finding high-quality versions can be frustrating. Most of us don’t have unlimited budgets to spend on every project, however, so sometimes free alternatives are necessary to take a piece forward.

That’s why we’ve pulled together this collection of high-quality free retro and vintage resources. If you’re a designer or illustrator who simply doesn’t have time to trawl the internet every time you need to source a quality free font, brush, vector, action, or any other resource– this list will save you hours. We’ll be adding to it regularly, so bookmark it if you’re often in this situation.

Of course, free resources rarely stand up against paid-for alternatives. If you need a first-class design tool for an important piece of client work or dream personal project, you’ll find a huge range of popular, ridiculously affordable retro and vintage resources for your libraries right here:


And for all those design and illustration projects that don’t have a big budget, here are 17 of the best free retro and vintage resources that will help you achieve that classic retro look in your next project, on a budget.

50 free retro and vintage fonts

RetroSupply Co.

For fantastic free retro and vintage fonts, look no further than our hand-picked selection covering the best of the web. From 60s signage-inspired lettering to pixel-style typefaces, decorative typography, retro-futuristic brush fonts and more, you’ll find a decent free font for any design project.

COMIC BOOKS PLUS

Comic Book Plus is the original and premier stie to legally read and download Golden and Silver Age comic books. It's a great resource to get inspiration for your own drawings, layout, color palettes and more.

RetroSupply Co. used this site to gather inspiration and source material for the only authentic digital comic coloring system ColorLab.

PEXELS

All photos and videos on Pexels can be downloaded and used for free. There are a wide variety of images, including vintage photos and retro photos.

Attribution is not required and you can modify the photos and videos from Pexels, making this one free design resource you'll find yourself coming back to.

THE NOUN PROJECT

The Noun Project is a site that has over 5 million icons and photos that are free for download and use under a free Creative Commons license.

You can find plenty of retro icons and vintage style photographs for your next project or find a more specific icon or photo by using their search feature.

INTERNET ARCHIVE

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form– and it's completely free.

That means you can use any of their 8.4 million videos, 14.7 million audio recordings, and 4.4 million images in your next project without hurting your budget.

9 FREE RETROSUPPLY CO. brushes, paper textures, fonts, and color palettes

RetroSupply Co.

Join the RetroSupply Newsletter and get access to 9 of RetroSupply's best-selling products FREE! Whenever possible, sample products are provided for all software including Procreate, Photoshop, Illustrator, Affinity, and Clip Studio Paint.

ADOBE COLOR

Adobe Color, formerly known as Kuler Adobe, provides color palette inspiration and can help you choose the right color combination for your next project. You can create your own color palettes by inputing an image with the Extract Theme tool or experimenting with the Color Wheel. Need more inspiration? Browse thousands of color combinations from the Adobe color community.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Library of Congress hosts a page of free to use images that are either in the public domain, have no known copyright, or have been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.

Each set of content is conveniently curated and presented on a theme for easy navigation. Of course, you can also use the search tool to find more content on more specific topics.

30 free retro and vintage textures

RETROSUPPLY CO.

The right texture will take your work to the next level, adding depth, warmth and personality to an otherwise flat image. From grungy textures to concrete samples, halftones, bokeh and beyond, you’ll find a wide range of free textures in this collection.

UNSPLASH

Unsplash is a platform powered by photographers who have gifted hundreds of thousands of their own photos free for public use. All photos are covered under the Unsplash license, which means you can do whatever you want with them!

FREE ICON LIBRARY

ENDLESS ICONS

Of course, if you’re after free icons then Endless Icons should be one of your first stops. With over 300,000 thousand vector icons, the resources covers everything from business to music, education, outdoors and more. For free design resources, it’s a winner.

12 free VINTAGE AND RETRO PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS

RETROSUPPLY CO.

Speed up your workflow with these 10 free actions for creating retro and vintage effects in your designs. Whether you’re looking to create a quick halftone, 1930s glitter text, old parchment effect or more, there’s a wide selection of free actions for PhotoshoP in this collection - plus a few ridiculously affordable premium options too.

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW

The Public Domain Review is an online journal and non-profit that hosts thousands of works that fall into the public domain, or out-of-copyright material, that is free to enjoy, share, and use in your next project without restriction.

5 FREE RETROSUPPLY CO. FONTS

RetroSupply Co.

Grab five of RetroSupply's most popular retro fonts for free. Fonts are packaged in one easy to download ZIP file. Includes OTF files, license, and we'll even send you some more free retro fonts and resources for the next few days after you sign up.

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW

Typewolf website has a useful section, Free Font Lists, which has four free fonts lists, including Top 10 Free Fonts That Aren't on Google Fonts, but you'll need to sign up for Typewolf founder Jeremiah Shoaf’s monthly newsletter.

If you want to cut stright to the chase, checkout the Top 40 Google Fonts list we've linked to below.

THE BEST free ILLUSTRATOR BRUSHES FOR RETRO AND VINTAGE EFFECTS

RETROSUPPLY CO.

Quality Adobe Illustrator brushes can take your vector work to an entirely new level when trying to achieve a less clean, vintage or retro aesthetic. But free Illustrator brushes that are high enough quality to get your work to that level are decidedly harder to come by. RetroSupply put in the hours for you and scoured the internet for the best of the best free Illustrator brushes.

LOST TYPE CO-OP

Lost Type is a collaborative, pay-what-you-can type foundry and has served as a source for unique typefaces, including a collection of over 50 different typefaces from contributors all over the world.

You can technically get these fonts for free by putting in $0. However, if you try out the typeface and love it or want to use it on your next project, we highly encourage you to pay more. 100% of the funds from sales of the fonts go directly to their respective designers.