The concept of Clip Art predates the computer. Often it was required to copy images or physically cut them from old magazines or books that were in the public domain, to create the new composition. It was not necessary to create original artwork every time, nor was it possible financially – and hence, preexisting published art was heavily used as an adjunct to some message. Usually a clip art is some simple artwork, a message, an object or some other design that has very few lines and color. As soon as messages were starting to be created on computers, the idea was imported there.

In fact the first clip art libraries were provided on Word Processing programs that allowed one to add simple pictures and even tweak them (you could tinker with the aspect ratio or size of such clip art without damage to its image quality – clip art is usually ‘vector art’) to suit the environment. At the same time, clip art can also consist of photographs for all occasions. The licensing fees of the program would typically cover the use of such artwork. Today, huge libraries are available, both in the public domain as well as paid services that contain huge collection of clip art for all occasions. The concept of clip art is a great time saver, and at the same time it provides for an enhanced user experience through value addition, thus making it an immensely popular concept. Today, companies and individuals across the world make use of this time and cost saving feature to add variety and meaning to their messages.

In this section of the directory, we provide links to libraries containing huge cache of icons, images, photographs, clip arts, the vendors selling them, and other useful resources.

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