Who doesn’t want to use unique textures on their websites when developing a site for a client or for their own personal sites? I have spent hours going through images at Flickr or Deviant Art and do think those sites are awesome, but I wanted to find some other sites too. A lot of people believe that you need to pay for these great textures. However, the list below shows you some resources I have found which are completely free. True, they might have paid upgrade options, but this should steer you in the right direction for great textures for your website.
Subtlepatterns.com
This is an awesome site that has almost 400 backgrounds that you can use on your website. They are completely 100% free. You don’t need to sign up for an account or anything to download the textures. I have tested it out. You can sign up for an email opt-in, and they will notify you whenever there are new textures to download. There is a pretty cool feature where you can download a plugin for Photoshop for $11.99.
Transparenttextures.com
I really love this site. Basically, if you already know the color of the background you want to use and want to specify your hex number (example: #0082d9) and then browse 100’s of different pre-made backgrounds that are a transparent texture over that color you can easily download or create a wallpaper from the graphic. There is even a search bar at the top of the site where you can specify bricks, flowers, squares, etc.) However, one really cool thing about this site is it allows you to just cut and paste the background and grab the CSS straight from the website. Meaning that all you do is select the background and click copy to clipboard. Here is an example of one I did:
background-color: #0082d9;
background-image: url(https://www.transparenttextures.com/patterns/45-degree-fabric-light.png);
/* This is mostly intended for prototyping; please download the pattern and re-host for production environments. Thank you! */
Lostandtaken.com
This website currently has over 130 pages of textures. There are 6 textures on each page, so you guessed it that is 780 textures to choose from. To download them you’re going to simply click on the image that you want and then right click the picture and save it to your hard drive. On the right-hand site, you can specify what you’re looking for. For example, they have many categories to choose from; paper, grudge, light blurs, wood, experimental, book covers, film, stone, mud, brick, bark, bubbles, leafs, water, etc. There are 32 categories to choose from.
This is an ever growing list that I will be updating whenever I find new sites to add. If there are any of them that you feel need to be added to this list please leave a comment down below and I will be sure to post a link to the website. Happy texture hunting!
Wow, so many options, so many cool effects, I would like to tweek the look of my website, but now, Oh.. So many choices where do I start? This site was a great stumle, thank you for the information. Now I have to get to work.
glad you liked it 🙂
My head is just spinning with ideas now. I am really glad I stumbled across this article. There are so many cool sites that are free that allow you to add texture to your website. Very cool stuff!
Also, I did come across a very cool article on brilliant uses for textures which you might want to take a look at: https://www.awwwards.com/brilliant-uses-of-texture-in-website-design-and-some-resources.html
I am not the author of this site, but really do like the post they made with examples.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
I see your blog it is awesome. You write about great stuff. I like it. It is a great list of sites. Thanks for sharing.