Building a home page begins with ideas for content - information to be shared.  But web projects quickly grow to include graphics, attractive page layout, and possibly even animations, audio, video, or interactive applets.  At least a healthy does of graphic design and page layout are necessary to make even a simple web site inviting.  This guide may be of help in finding graphics to add to a page and finding tools to manipulate and customize the graphics we add. 

Two words of caution - the sites to which we link claim to be free of any copy restrictions from other sources.  This does not relieve each of us from the burden of deciding whether specific material is legal.  If a site contains a well-known cartoon character, for instance, don't copy it without specific written permission.  See the section on Copyright for more information.   Also, these sites may contain secondary links to other sites with sexually explicit or suggestive content.  Preview the graphic you ask students to use!  Don't assume any site is free of questionable material for the students with which your work.

We approach this resource section through several basic questions:

Where do I get free clip art and other graphics?

Where do I see some great photographs?

Where do I acquire tools to manipulate graphics (cropping, modifying, changing graphic format)?

What about other media - audio tools, FTP programs, etc.?

And when you're done exploring here, you may wish to return to the Session 3 outline or to the course overview.

Clip Art Sources

Here are just a few recognized good spots to get icons, clip art, horizontal rules, animiations, background colors, etc.   Note - these sites are just examples of the hundreds of resources available on the Web.

A+ Art Free Clipart Icons Backgrounds Buttons Bars Animate .gif Photos

This site has a good collection of quality clip art broken into the categories listed in the site's title.  It includes a place to enter your e-mail to receive word when the site is updated.

Barry's Clip Art Server

Here is an award-winning site compiling clip art and links to other clip art archives.   It includes a search tool and a very effective index of the content on the site.

Kids Domain Icon Mania

The Kids Domain site includes links to many nice icons and graphics kids might enjoy using.  It also includes original drawings by various artists of copyrighted images.   Their idea is that if an individual recreates a Muppec character, for instance, they have not copied the image.  Users would be well-advised to select non-copyrighted images regardless of who the artist is.

AwesomeClipartForKids

This web site is advertised for kids but includes quite a bit of content a teacher could use to enhance web pages, handouts, etc.  For kids, there is also an area to print outline pages for coloring.

Mega Web Tools

This site contains links to clip art collections as well as many other tools for web page authoring.

Website Designs - Graphics Center

They have collected hundreds of clip art images, backgrounds, etc.  They are free for use as long as you provide a link back to their home page (such as we have done here!)

http://www.awesomeclipartforkids.com/

 

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Some Picture Sites

Artville

Eyewire

Corbis/Digital Stock

Corel

Minolta

Olympus

PhotoSource

PhotoEssentials

Publishers Depot

NASA

Graphics Tools

GIF Converter

This shareware program is useful in viewing graphics of all types on a Macintosh and in converting them from one format to another. It is particularly useful for converting files to Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) (a standard on the internet). Obtain a copy at ftp://ftp.amug.org/pub/mirrors/info-mac/gst/grf/gif-converter-237.hqx

GraphicConverter

This program performs basically the same functions as the program GIFConverter mentioned above. It is available at ftp://ftp.amug.org/pub/mirrors/info-mac/gst/grf/graphic-converter-243-de.hqx

Transparency

Here is a program with which graphics can be made "transparent" so that background color will show through the white portion of the graphic.

LView Pro

This is a graphics conversion program for use with graphics of all formats and may be used to create documents for use on the web. Get a copy of this shareware at http://world.std.com/~mmedia/lviewp.html

Paintshop Pro

This program is also useful for converting and editing graphics for use on the internet. Get a copy at http://www.t-informatik.ba-stuttgart.de/~samaier/software/paintpr/paint3.zip

GIFTRANS

This program for Windows based machines is useful for making graphics "transparent" - background color will show through white areas of the graphic. It may be accessed at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/packages/infosystems/WWW/tools/giftrans

Mega Web Tools

This site contains links to graphics files and graphics tools as well as many other utilities for web page authoring.

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Audio Tools

Sound Machine

This program can be used to play and record sounds as either SND or AU files. It is available on the web at http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-sound.html

Mega Web Tools

This site contains links to audio files and audio tools as well as many other utilities for web page authoring.

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