In a small business, you are often an “army of one.”  And when it comes to your online community, sometimes it’s even harder to get resources to help make it attractive and vibrant.  This post is a roundup of some of our favorite online resources for free and/or cheap graphic design and editing tools.  (We assume you’ve already enabled the Halloween Graemlins. )

Before you plunge into the list, though, one tip: ask your community members!  Depending on what you’re looking to accomplish, your own members might be thrilled to contribute free graphics or photos that will enhance the site.  You could even have a contest.  Who knows, one of your members might be a design pro who wants to contribute!

If you have a favorite resources, please feel free to suggest it in the comments.

Photography

Article: 15 Best places for stock photography by SixRevisions
http://sixrevisions.com/resour...stock-photos-online/

Fotolia - inexpensive photos, vector, & video
http://us.fotolia.com/bsa

Color Palettes

DeGraeve color palette generator - put any URL and it will show you matching color swatches with hex codes
http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/

Colorhunter.com
Upload an image or enter a tag, hex code, or URL to get a matching color palette

http://www.0to255.com - Help with color shades for theming

http://colorjack.com

http://colorschemedesigner.com

http://colorcombos.com

Graphics/Icons

Article: Sources for Free Icon Sets from Smashing Magazine (includes social media icons)
http://www.smashingmagazine.co...or-your-next-design/

Vector art
http://www.vecteezy.com/

Icon Eden
http://www.iconeden.com - inexpensive icon sets

Icon Archive
http://www.iconarchive.com - free and inexpensive icons

Favicon Maker

Upload a graphic and it will convert it to a favicon for you
http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon

Design Projects

99Designs - offer your project and get bids from designers
http://99designs.com/

File Conversion

http://www.zamzar.com - free, it will convert video, audio, graphic files, images, etc., to different formats

Domain Search

doma.nr - a fast search for all domain extensions, not just dot com...offers creative alternative suggestions too

Browser Stats

What browsers you need to optimize for, with breakdown by version
http://w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Storefronts

http://www.cafepress.com

http://www.zazzle.com

Online Image Editing

The Aviary - http://www.aviary.com
Free suite of powerful online editing tools

http://www.roundpic.com - free, turns images into round shapes

Fonts & Type Optimization

http://www.Urbanfonts.com - best source for free fonts

http://www.myfonts.com - inexpensive fonts

http://typetester.org  - compare screen types and various fonts/sizes

Button Maker

http://www.mycoolbutton.com - generate buttons online, cheap yearly subscription