Clip art are graphic images made available, either for free or for a fee, from a designer or graphic design company. Clip art images range from simple to elaborate, black and white to full color and can be found in just about any theme and style imaginable.
Since most of us aren’t graphic designers, turning to pre-designed images can be a terrific way to add impact to our wedding stationery, websites, and favors. Resources for finding clip art is available at the end of this article.There are some things to be aware of when selecting your clip art: image resolution, your printer’’s dpi capacity, and copyright.We’ll start with the last issue - copyright. When visiting a clip art site on the web, it’’s important that you understand the owner’s/designer’s copyrights. Violating copyrights is illegal. Just because an image appears on a website doesn’t make it available for download or your personal use. In most cases, the copyright information about the site’s images is usually posted. Before you grab someone else’s work, please abide by their copyright stipulations. Copyright can dictate whether you are given permission to modify, share, or even use the work at all.

We assume that you’re law-abiding, intelligent individuals and that just because you’re getting married you won’t put your morals on hold.

Probably the most important aspect of selecting clip art is the image resolution. Most clip-art available on the internet is is optimized for websites and not for printed materials, meaning that internet clip-art will print at a very low quality onto paper.

When images are created digitally (or scanned into digital format), they’re made up of dozens of little dots (pixels). Resolution is a way of measuring how many dots per inch (dpi) are in each image. Computer monitors need images of only 72 dpi to look “right”. For printing, an image needs a much higher dpi to look clean and crisp. We recommend at least 150 dpi for text and simple images and 300 dpi for more elaborate images and photographs. The higher the dpi, the better the quality of printing IF your printer can handle higher dpi.

It’s also worth noting that an image’s resolution can be lowered but it can” t be increased. It’ll be blurry and pixelated.

As for printing, your printer needs to be able to handle high resolution printing. If you’re printer is 3 years old or newer, you’re in luck. Most current inkjet printers will have zero problem with 300 dpi or higher resolution images.

Clip Art Resources

Free Clip Art

Anne’s Weddding Gifs and Backgrounds

Under 100 images

72 dpi only

Art by Cheryl

Approximately 150 images

72 dpi only

Clips Ahoy

Approximately 50 images

72 dpi only

Cool Clips

Approximately 500 images

72 dpi only

George’s Wedpage

Over 500 images

72 dpi only

GranGran’s Wedding Graphics

Approximately 100 images

72 dpi only

Pay Sources

gifART

Approximately 200 images

High and low resolution images

WeddingClipArt

Over 1,000 images

High and low resolution images