Illustration libraries for websites and apps

Good illustrations can explain an empty state, give a product some character, or make a landing page feel less generic. The hard part is finding a set that fits the rest of the design and has a licence you can actually use.

These were some of my favourite illustration resources in 2020:

• Blush Design — Illustration collections from different artists. Individual parts can be customised and combined into a new composition.

• Humaaans — A mix-and-match library of people, with free personal and commercial use at the time of writing.

• DrawKit — Hand-drawn vector illustrations and icons, with free collections that were updated regularly.

• Open Peeps — Hand-drawn people assembled from interchangeable vector poses, clothing, and expressions.

• Absurd — Surreal illustrations with deliberately open-ended meanings. A more distinctive choice than the usual product artwork.

• Ouch — Icons8’s collection of illustrations in several visual styles.

• Whoosh — A structured illustration pack for websites and apps. Shared colour styles make broad palette changes easier.

• Charco Illustrations — A set of 16 illustrations for interface states such as 404 pages, lost connections, errors, and construction screens.

• unDraw — A large library with on-the-fly colour changes, useful when an illustration needs to match a brand palette quickly.

• Streamline Illustrations — Fifty vector illustrations offered in multicolour, duotone, and line styles, with commercial use available at the time.

• Paper Illustrations — A paper-inspired set covering several categories, offered for personal and commercial use when this list was published.

• illlustrations.co — A collection that began as a 100-day illustration challenge and had grown beyond 120 images for landing pages, apps, and presentations.

• Illustrations by Lukasz Adam — MIT-licensed SVG illustrations and icons in several styles.

Do not choose a library only because its demo looks good. Check the licence, file formats, and how much you can change colours and individual parts. I would also avoid mixing several distinctive illustration styles on one site; one coherent set usually looks much more intentional.