
Ask HN: What do I use in place of Microsoft Clip Art now that it is dead? - hysan
Microsoft Clip Art Gallery was completely closed back in December (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gizmodo.com&#x2F;microsoft-is-killing-clip-art-because-nobody-uses-it-an-1665634402) and replaced by Bing Images. As a teacher, this is turning out to be a huge problem when trying to make worksheets. The old clip art gallery was immensely useful because:<p><pre><code>  1. Filtering by image type worked perfectly.
  2. I knew there would be no license issues.
  3. Although content may not have been perfect, the quality was uniform and good enough for handouts.
  4. I wouldn&#x27;t run into NSFW images (I have seen NSFW images even with strict search on before).
  5. No watermarks.
  6. Predictable uniform dimensions.
</code></pre>
I understand that for the majority of people the Clip Art Gallery was useless. But for us educators, it was invaluable. Can anyone suggest an alternative with similar quality &amp; functionality to the old Clip Art Search?<p>Granted that it&#x27;s legal, I&#x27;m even willing to replicate the old Clip Art Search site &amp; host it if an archive of all the clip art images is available for download.<p>In case anyone is curious, here are the main problems with generic image search engines (Bing, Google):<p><pre><code>  - Strict search is not full proof. With Google, turning it on breaks half of YouTube as well (blocks an insane amount of content so good luck looking for music&#x2F;videos to use in the classroom without resorting to downloading it).
  - It&#x27;s annoying to find clip art because most of the clip art on the web is watermarked.
  - Licensing (Bing is support to have an option for this but I don&#x27;t see it when I use Bing Images!)
  - It&#x27;s also annoying to have to deal with images of varying dimensions and quality (takes longer to adjust sizes in docs). Picking Square on Bing Images doesn&#x27;t actually give you 1:1 ratio images.</code></pre>
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JOfferijns
You should look at Art4Apps:
[http://www.art4apps.org/](http://www.art4apps.org/)

It's a library of images in the same dimensions and a uniform style, licensed
under Creative Commons.

They created it for developers of educational apps, but it could work just as
well for worksheets!

~~~
hysan
Thanks! This is looking to be the best resource of those suggested so far.

------
_wdh
The only site I know of that would vaguely fit the bill is
[https://openclipart.org/](https://openclipart.org/). However, it doesn't
appear to support searching by image type or by dimension and as far as I can
tell, it cannot be 100% guaranteed that you will have all SFW images.

~~~
hysan
Thanks! This also looks great. Hopefully I won't run into any NSFW images at
work.

------
srik
[http://thenounproject.com](http://thenounproject.com)

~~~
crisnoble
This is a good option, all images are svgs so you won't run into scaling
issues, the quality generally very high, and all images are CC licensed (or
public domain) with options to pay to waive attribution. The only tricky bit
would be getting them into word in an efficient manner.

~~~
Someone1234
They appear to offer PNGs of everything in addition to SVG so importing should
be easy. Although you may lose some of the benefits of SVG.

------
colinbartlett
When I was building websites in the mid-90's myself and everyone I knew had
something like "250,000 Clip Art Images" on 30 CDs or something like that. It
came with a giant phone book-like directory of them all by name.

I'd be astonished if some publisher hadn't put that online even for some
nominal fee. Anyone else remember this stuff?

~~~
Leftium
IMSI MasterClips ("1,500,000" now.) [1]

Of course, the bulk of that number comes via 1-year membership to
[http://www.iclipart.com/](http://www.iclipart.com/)

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/IMSI-00M15W10CC-
MasterClips-500-000/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/IMSI-00M15W10CC-
MasterClips-500-000/dp/B0000638TB)

------
HarrietJones
You can search Flickr for Creative Commons images. These images have very
flexible (and free) licensing. It's a bit of a jump to move from clip art
images to photographs, but with fast internet and large image files, the use
of clip art is dying out.

I was looking for easy ways to search CC images, and this website (which also
has an openclipart search) also came up.

[http://search.creativecommons.org/](http://search.creativecommons.org/)

------
fvox13
Not necessarily free, but low-cost / fair price:
[https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Type-of-
Resource/...](https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Type-of-
Resource/Clip-Art)

------
projproj
I made canweimage.com to solve some of the pain points with generic image
search engines in mind. All search results come from Wikimedia, so licensing
is usually pretty liberal. You can also limit results to public domain only.
No images on Wikimedia are watermarked, that I have seen.

Strict search is the only option on canweimage. It's not full proof either,
but I check every file name in the results against a very long list of NSFW
words and phrases. Any matches are filtered out.

While you'll still be dealing with dimension issues yourself, each result
displays its dimensions. That can help pick more appropriate sizes.

------
troymc
Clipart.com claims to be the "web’s largest collection of royalty-free
clipart, … available by subscription. Subscribers pay one flat fee, and
download whatever they need from over 10 million digital assets."

Much of it even looks like the old Microsoft clip art.

They also have a Clipart.com Schools Edition specifically for teachers:

[http://schools.clipart.com/](http://schools.clipart.com/)

------
bhartzer
As a blogger and someone who uses PowerPoint a lot, I find a lot of good
images over at Canva.com (not associated with them, I just really like and use
their service).

There are a few times when I need some additional images or images that aren't
included in their "free" list of images, though, and those are typically $1
each.

------
claireemiliel
You can try with [https://beta.illustrio.com](https://beta.illustrio.com),
it's still in beta but I’ve been granted access lately. My experience with it
is pretty close to what you’ve been describing. You can easily search for
images, and filters by style (flat, outline, etc) and category. Then you can
change the look (customization include color and position of elements), and
finally download in the filetype and format you like.

From what I understood, the whole library is created with SVGs allowing for
manipulation.

~~~
Linnea_Solved
Hey, thanks for the tip! Just signed up for a beta invite...looks pretty
awesome :)

------
jeffpsherman
Try [http://www.photosforclass.com/](http://www.photosforclass.com/) It's
designed to be a school safe search with easy attribution.

------
helen842000
Depending on the age & topic you were teaching you could try
[http://sparklebox.co.uk](http://sparklebox.co.uk) or Teachers Pet -
[http://tpet.co.uk](http://tpet.co.uk) \- these cover a variety of lessons &
themes and are suitable for up to age 10.

------
Osaka
The creative commons site provides links to popular search engines with with
Create Commons licenses. Though these are not Clip art, there is a lot of
material which you can use. Just needs a bit of searching.

[http://search.creativecommons.org/](http://search.creativecommons.org/)

------
pbz
Depending on what type of "clipart" you're looking for these two sites may be
useful: [http://www.iconarchive.com/](http://www.iconarchive.com/) and
[https://www.iconfinder.com/](https://www.iconfinder.com/)

------
brudgers
So out of curiosity, what are some studies indicating educational benefits of
clipart on worksheets?

By which of course I am referring to studies that indicate significant
educational benefits of clipart on worksheets independently of the underlying
educational benefits of worksheets in general.

~~~
hysan
First, it's important to note that I teach ESL in a foreign country (Japan).
I'm an assistant teacher, but I do lead the classes sometimes. I primarily
make handouts and games/activities for helping teach vocabulary and grammar
points. That said, it should be easy to see where clip art can help.

    
    
      - helping students associate new words with images
      - illustrating grammar differences via comparison
      - breaking up a handout so the flow is easier to follow (think a comic)
      - preventing excessive text which could make a handout look daunting
      - creating flash cards for students or other such materials
    

I also took quite a bit of time to learn about typography and combined that
with what I learned about UI/UX design in university to make my handouts look
easy to read. I also choose fonts carefully because there is no way for me to
know if any of my students are dyslexic (this is one great use of Comic Sans
type fonts) due to Japan's privacy laws.

I know that my position has little power when it comes to the method of
education. So I do my best to provide the highest quality work for the little
things I do have control over. Also, the work I do now will no doubt help me
when I pursue an education career back in my home country.

I'm too busy to find the sources I've read over the years since I never
archived any of them. But if you read up on ESL, special needs teaching,
education in general, raising children, psychology, and combine it with a
general understanding of design, you'll see that clip art can be extremely
useful. Mainly because the best clip art == cartoons boiled down to a single
essential point. No extraneous fluff unlike realistic drawing or photos.

------
striking
The Google LIFE Photo archive is one of my personal favorites:
[http://images.google.com/hosted/life](http://images.google.com/hosted/life)

~~~
th0br0
That 404s for me? EDIT: Oh... they screwed up their http/https config. Only
accessible via HTTP.

------
onassar
While it's not exactly in the same league,
[http://shareasimage.com](http://shareasimage.com) is my go-to

------
iqonik
Perhaps you should talk to/partner with patio11, sounds like a great product
and relevant to the same market as Bingo Card Creator!

------
theonewolf
What about The Noun Project
[http://thenounproject.com/](http://thenounproject.com/)?

------
nodata
You can click the search options button in Google image search and choose the
dimensions, license, and picture type you want.

------
adamgamble
[http://www.vecteezy.com](http://www.vecteezy.com) has loads of free art to
download.

------
persona
You may find some options here:
[https://openclipart.org](https://openclipart.org)

------
reinhardt1053
[http://www.freevectors.net/](http://www.freevectors.net/)

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seekingcharlie
[http://flaticon.com](http://flaticon.com)

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godot
this is less clipart and more icons, but I loved
[http://findicons.com](http://findicons.com) for making personal apps as most
icons on there are free for commercial uses.

------
boobsbr
find an old office disc, and get the clipart images from it?

