All guides: Industrial Design: Images

Image use and copyright

Check the copyright statement or license conditions before using an image. You may be able to download, re-use or adapt an image under some Creative Commons licenses.

RMIT copyright advice
What you need to know about copyright as a student.

Image databases

RMIT Library subscribes to databases that provide access to high quality images.

ARTstor (now part of JSTOR database)
Over 1.6 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences.
Select the Log in button on the top right and then select Find my institution and search for RMIT.
Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online provides Web access to the entire text of The Dictionary of Art with quarterly additions of new material and updates to the text, plus extensive image links and all the sophisticated search advantages possible with an online reference source.

Web image collections

The following web collections include design-related images.

Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) brings together collections from America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available.
Europeana
Europeana hosts a diverse collection of images from European archives, libraries and museums.
Google Arts and Culture
Provides access to major world museum collections and artworks.
Library of Congress prints and photographs
The collection includes photographs, prints, drawings, posters and architectural and engineering drawings, mostly focussed on the United States but with some international scope.
State Library of Victoria image pool
SLV’s digital image pool provides access to historical images, free of copyright restrictions.
Trove
Trove is an Australian based free discovery service. Resources are grouped into categories including collections of pictures, photos and objects.
VADS: Visual arts database service
Contains images from collections in the UK.
Openverse
Search Openverse for images with a Creative Commons license. The CC license will tell you how you can use the image and how to attribute it.

Image-creation tools

Adobe Express (Premium)
An all-in-one design, photo and video tool, with built-in generative AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities. Available to RMIT staff and students.
Canva
A graphic design tool, including Magic Design to generate designs using AI (artificial intelligence).
Leo
A generative AI (artificial intelligence) platform for design ideation. Turn your product description into a design concept, product summary and technical specification document.
ChatGPT
Generate images based on a text description with the ability to continue refining the output. Free with limitations on daily use.
Vizcom
An AI (artificial intelligence) tool for design and creative professionals to transform sketches into visual designs and 3D models. A free version is available.

Library subject guides

Industrial Design

Image use and copyright

Image databases

Web image collections

Image-creation tools