Where to Find Free Fonts, Color Schemes, Images and Icons for Your Slide Deck

There are times when you need to design presentation in a few hours. You have the content ready and you can’t waste your time. Yet, there’re always questions about the free resources for fonts, colors, icons... These searches consume your time and don’t provide you with the best answers.

Luckily, here’s your Go-To Cheatsheet with simple decisions on what resources to use. Of course, there are many more. However, if you’re in a hurry and you need something that works, these links will be useful.

Where can I download the fonts?

The most convenient choice would be Google Fonts.

It's a collection of fonts curated by Google. You can sort the fonts by categories (serif, handwriting, etc), languages, number of styles, thickness, slant, width. The best feature is previewing your text written in this font.

When you explore a font’s page, you'll find the popular pairings and see how the fonts might be combined in your presentation. Once you decided on a font, press Select this font. When you chose all desired fonts, open a menu on the bottom right and download them with one click.

How do I pick the right color scheme?

I find Coolors.co to be the most useful resource for picking colors.

Open the link, then click “Start the Generator” button and watch the magic in action. If you don’t have any specific preference, press space to check out different color combinations. This resource will suggest new color schemes.

If you work on a presentation for a particular brand, type the brand color codes. You can pick these colors from the logo with an eyedropper in PowerPoint, Keynote or Photoshop. Click the lock icon to lock the colors. Then, press space to see the combinations.

Where can I find beautiful free images?

When in doubt, search images at Stocksnap.

There are two ways of using this site. If you know exactly what you’re looking for, type the keyword in the search box. Think of associations. For example, if you’re looking for business-related images, search for “laptop”.

Alternatively, you can browse images to find something that fits your request. Choose “trending” or “new” images below the search bar and explore hundreds of hand-picked photos. Use them for free for commercial and non-commercial purposes. You don't need to credit the author unless you want to.

What if I lack the icons for my presentation?

Number one in this category is Flaticon.

This is the website with vector icons. It's very easy to navigate and find the icons that will match your project. Search by packs of the same style, colors (mono-color or multicolor), stroke (filled or linear). Sort the items by popular or recent, find similar, customize size and color of the icons.

To use certain services, you’ll need to register and pay a subscription ($10 per month). Without the paid subscription, you may still browse the icons, download them and use for all purposes. The only rule is to credit the author. For example, you can write the attribution in the slide's footer or on the last slide of the deck.

Good luck with your slide journey!

If you would like help in looking for other resources or creating a professional presentation, write at [email protected] to learn how I can help you.