Recollect Microsoft'due south prune art? Neither did I until this week, when Redmond announced that clip fine art gallery is going the way of Clippy.

Or, to put it another way: once upon a time, we were all...

...merely now, anyone looking for classic clip art feels mostly...

To be fair, the clip art gallery you lot remember from days of yore is already long gone – in Office 2013, clip art was an online-but feature. If you're similar most people you didn't detect, because you haven't used clip art since Google Image Search launched in 2001, but for quite a while Function'south clip art characteristic was an embed of an online service.

It's that online service that is, as of this week, gone. In information technology's identify: a Bing Image Search, filtered to merely show you Artistic Eatables images.

Why Clip Art Was Somewhat Good

It's piece of cake to brand fun of Microsoft's erstwhile image gallery. There'south a Tumblr folio full of famous anthology and picture show covers, re-created with clip art and it'southward freaking hilarious.

Microsoft'due south gallery had an aesthetic, to be certain, and it wasn't high art. But these images, cheesy every bit they are, were besides incredibly useful in their fourth dimension. Information technology wasn't piece of cake to rapidly detect images in the dial-up age, and an entire industry of CD-ROMs you could buy for $50+ tried to fill that niche. You could buy those, or y'all could stick with what you already had: Microsoft's clip art.

There it was, inside the program you were already using. Sure, information technology wasn't pretty, only yous could quickly add a visual highlight to your certificate or presentation. Fifty-fifty improve: everything was rights-cleared, meaning you could utilize it in your document or PowerPoint presentation without the fear of legal repercussions.

In 2014 there's a lot more choice out there – images you can apply, complimentary of charge, without much legal worry. Even meliorate: a lot of them look great. You just demand to know where to await.

Microsoft's new embedded search volition assistance with this.

What Is Creative Eatables?

It's not hard to find images to use online – just use an epitome search. This works well, but it'south worth noting that doing so isn't necessarily legal. Most of the images you tin can find this way are owned by their original creators. This likely doesn't affair if you're only using something for private utilize, or fifty-fifty a school assignment, but if you intend to publish a work you need to make sure all rights are cleared.

Which brings us to Artistic Commons, the license Office'south new Bing-powered search filters for. My colleague Danny explained what Artistic Commons is, and why y'all should employ it, but the quick version is that it's a way for artists to tell the web their images are free to apply.

So Microsoft took down the clip art gallery, but is arguably offer something even better: a constantly updated stream of rights-cleared images. You lot'll find photos, which look a lot better than prune art ever did. Information technology'south hard to see this as anything but an improvement, really.

Is in that location a potential downside? Aye. Just because a search engine sees something as Creative Commons doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Here at MakeUseOf, for example, nosotros've had at least one lensman threaten to sue us over an image he didn't realize he himself licensed every bit Creative Content. He backed downward when we pointed this out, and it's ane example resulting from thousands of blog posts spread over a decade, but know that this isn't without hazard.

I Don't Like Bing, What Should I Use Instead?

Just considering Bing is congenital into Office doesn't mean it'southward your only choice.

My colleague Chris compared Google Image search to Bing, and plant Google's results to exist better. If you feel the aforementioned fashion, don't worry: you can use it to observe rights-cleared images. While searching for an paradigm, click Search Tools and then Usage Rights.

With this your results volition be filtered, showing y'all images you can reuse.

Be careful: most Creative Commons images require attribution, pregnant you need to give credit to the artist in order to utilise the image. Make sure you lot empathise Creative Commons and other licenses before using such images.

If you lot'd rather not make room for an attribution, there are other sites fabricated up entirely of images you lot can use free of charge. My preferred choice is MorgueFile, a collection of high-quality photos you can use free of charge with no strings attached whatever.

Or, if you actually prefer that "clip-art await", you should check out OpenClipArt.org. It has the cheesy aesthetic y'all crave.

Information technology's a Christmas phenomenon!

RIP Clip Art

A lot of jokes have been cracked at clip fine art's expense this week, but for many this was a useful feature of Office that will be missed.

Oh, and Mac users: Clip Art is even so an offline feature in Office for Mac 2011, and so yous tin still utilise information technology. You won't. Merely you tin can.

If clip art appeals to you for its retro feel, y'all might too like pixel fine art. Y'all can create some yourself with pixel art tools.

Black Screen at Boot on Windows? Here's How to Ready Information technology

Read Side by side

About The Author

Justin Pot (776 Articles Published)

Justin Pot is a technology announcer based in Portland, Oregon. He loves engineering science, people and nature – and tries to savor all iii whenever possible. You can chat with Justin on Twitter, right now.

More than From Justin Pot