Art + Design

The Ad*Access Project presents images and information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.

The AdViews digital collection provides access to thousands of historic commercials created for clients or acquired by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency or its predecessor during the 1950s - 1980s.

The AIGA archives and special collections serve to identify, preserve, and make collections of enduring value available to the public. With more than 20,000 selections dating back to 1924, the AIGA Design Archives is a vital record of all disciplines of communication design.

Medals have been awarded since 1920 to individuals who have set standards of excellence over a lifetime of work or have made individual contributions to innovation within the practice of design. Search here for the recipients and their biographical profiles.

This website represents Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s diverse collection, spanning thirty centuries of historic and contemporary design.

The Graphic Design Archive (GDA) at Rochester Institute of Technology documents and preserves the work of significant American graphic designers active from the 1920s to the 1960s, as well as selected contemporary designers working in the modernist traditions.

DPLA connects people to photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and much more, held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials are free and immediately available in digital format. Browse by topic to narrow your search.

This collection presents over 3,300 items relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture.

Letterform Archive is a nonprofit center that chronicles "the history of written communication, from the invention of writing and medieval manuscripts to modernism, the age of print to the present explosion of digital type."

The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and, in some cases, other units of the Library of Congress. Browse by collection to narrow your search.

A free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound, led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The New York Public Library Digital Collections contains 884,351 items and counting, representative of the diversity of the vast collections—from books to videos, maps to manuscripts, illustrations to photos, and more.

This site was first put on the web in 1999 by Nancy Stock-Allen, professor at Moore College of Art and Design as a quick outline of her lectures for graphic design students.

"The British Library’s collections on Flickr Commons offer access to millions of public domain images, which we encourage you to explore and re-use."

"The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required."

"This page features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use."

"Enjoy more than 375,000 hi-res images of public-domain works from the collection."

"Over 50,000 images are available for download, and we will continue to add more images for free access as more works are photographed and as works of art enter the public domain."

Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of works now fallen into the public domain from the history of art, literature, and ideas.

"A collection of 76,533,652 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute"