Are you looking for nice illustrations for your scientific presentations? Do you need some cool science art figures to better explain your work in the next poster?
If that is the case, and you don’t want to spend time creating them, searching on Google images may seem the obvious thing to do. However, you may find yourself lost among a lot of uninteresting images, most of which probably won’t be free to use.
Don’t worry, there is an alternative. You can make your life easier by searching on repositories with professional illustrations to use free of charge in your figures, PowerPoint presentations and posters.
Below you will find a selection of 7 cool websites from which you can download for free science illustrations to use in your work.
Just remember to always check the terms and conditions for each illustration. Some repositories have different types of licenses depending on the illustration.
If your idea is to use some already made illustrations to create a figure for a publication, always check the journal’s policy on graphical abstracts and figures. Some journals may require all the work to be 100% original.
1. Pixabay
Pixabay is a huge repository of images, illustrations, and vector graphics in which you can even find videos and music.
By searching for vectors, you will find illustrations in SVG format, which can be edited later in Illustrator or PowerPoint, to better adapt them to your presentation or poster.
Pixabay is meant as a general resource, not specialized in science topics, so if you are looking for something very specific, you probably won’t find it here. However, it can be really useful to represent more generic elements, such as a microscope or other laboratory stuff.
2. Smart servier
In Smart servier you will find 3000 free medical images to use in publications and scientific presentations provided by Les Laboratoires Servier.
These illustrations can be downloaded individually as PNG, or you can download the entire set of illustrations from one specific category. In this case, you will obtain a PowerPoint presentation with all the drawings, which can be further edited later on.
Note that all the illustrations are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. So, accordingly, you are free to use them, but you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made.
3. Vecteezy
Vecteezy is a website from which you can download free vector art, stock photos and videos. In this website you will find a nice collection of science related illustrations.
The website allows you to use filters to optimize the search. For instance, you can select what colors you prefer the illustrations to be or their orientation. If you look for vectors, you will also be able to later edit the file on Illustrator or PowerPoint.
Vecteeze has images under different license types, so you can also choose to see only the ones under a free license. Remember to always check the license specifications, since in this case, free files have some usage limitations, and you must attribute Vecteezy in your work.
4. SciDraw
SciDraw is a free repository of scientific illustrations created by Federico Claudi and Alex Harston, where the drawings are made by and for scientists.
In this website, you can find drawings of different animal models and other scientific setups to use in your scientific presentations, posters, grant proposals, etc. You can also contribute to this repository by uploading your own creations.
All the illustrations are under the Creative Commons 4.0 license, so you are free to download, use, modify and distribute the images, even commercially, as long as proper credit is given.
5. Freepik
Freepik is a website with lots of different assets such as vectors, illustrations, photos, and icons, similar to Pixabay or Vecteeze.
When searching for illustrations, remember to check for vector drawings under a free license. You can do so by selecting this options in the browser. Thus, you will be able to download EPS files that can be further edited later one in a design program such as Illustrator or PowerPoint.
In this case, the free license allows you to use the drawings for both personal and commercial work and to modify them, but you have to credit the author. Remember to check the license specifications for any illustrations, just to be sure you will use them properly.
6. Innovative Genomics glossary
In the glossary of the Innovative Genomics Institute, you will find different science concepts explained and illustrated. The great thing is that you can download all the illustrations in PNG and SVG format!
The drawings were created by Christine Liu and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Therefore, you can use and adapt the illustrations for non-commercial, educational purposes and must give appropriate credit. Remember to check all the license specifications before using the drawings!
7. Blush
Blush is a completely different repository of illustrations. No, in this website you won’t found lots of drawings of science related elements, but is an excellent place to find characters from all walks of life.
You can use these characters to represent patients affected by a specific disease or to illustrate the population that has participated in your study.
Another cool thing about Blush is that, once you have selected an illustration, you can customize different characteristics of the character, such as the hair, the skin tone or the stance.
Blush offers both a free plan and a pro plan that costs $12 per month. But don’t worry, you won’t need to pay to download the illustrations. With the free version, you can download them for free in a small PNG format with a transparent background, which can be more than enough for a scientific presentation.
According to Blush license, you can use, copy and modify the illustrations for free for commercial and non-commercial purposes, without permission from the illustrator or Blush. Remember to check the license for further details.
Hope you can find the perfect free illustration for your figure, scientific poster or presentation among these selected websites.
However, if you don’t want to waste time browsing these websites; or if you need to illustrate something very specific and want it to be unique, contact us!
We will be happy to help you with your scientific illustration! Have a look at our portfolio to see what we can do for you!