This is the course website for English 213, Section A, taught by Quinn Warnick at Iowa State University during fall 2008. Please refer to the policy document, found at the top of the center column, for more information about this class. Updates to the syllabus will be posted to this site one week in advance, and any changes to the readings and/or assignments will be reflected in the summaries for each week.
Image and Design Resources
As you lay out and design your Mix Tape poster, you may find it helpful to draw upon work in the public domain. Images and text in the public domain are no longer protected by copyright, so they can be modified or used as-is for your mix tape.
An Important Note about Resolution
Many of the images you will find online are "low resolution" images, meaning that they look good on your computer screen (which can display roughly 72 or 96 dots per inch, depending on the brand), but pixelated and fuzzy when you print them out. As a general rule of thumb, if you plan to print an image, it should be at least 300 dots per inch. Hence, if you find an image that is 300 pixels wide, it may look like it's four inches wide on your screen, but when you adjust the resolution in Photoshop, it will be only one inch wide. As you search for images, follow this maxim: the bigger, the better. If want to include a 5x5-inch image on your poster, it needs to be at least 1500 pixels wide and 1500 pixels tall. [Note to design geeks in the class: Yes, I realize that I'm drastically oversimplifying screen vs. print resolutions, but we can't cover everything at once. We'll talk more about the details of print vs. screen technology later in the semester.]The List of Websites
The following list of websites is far from exhaustive, but it's a good starting point. If you find other resources in your searching that would be helpful to the rest of the class, please email the links to me and I will add them to this page.Wikipedia: Public Domain Image Resources — This page links to dozens of other sites containing artwork in the public domain. You can find links to general sites, as well as links to very specific niche sites. You may also want to take a look at Wikipedia's "Free Image Resources" page.
Stock.XCHNG — A great collection of free stock photography. This is the place I usually start when I'm looking for photos for class projects. You may need to create an account to download content, but it doesn't cost. Another site that's quite similar to Stock.XCHNG is Morgue File.
Flickr.com — Flickr is a community photo-sharing website, where anyone can create an account and share their images. Please be aware, however, that not all members of the community allow their images to be used by other people. To find images that are acceptable to use, search for a key word, then click on "advanced search." Scroll to the bottom of the page and check the box that says "" and the box that says, "Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon." If you limit your searches this way, you'll only find images that are acceptable to use for projects in our class.
Uncle Sam's Photos — All photos produced by federal government agencies are automatically in the public domain (your tax dollars hard at work!). This site contains links to the actual government-sponsored image galleries.
New York Public Library's Digital Gallery — The NYPL has put together a massive collection of historical photos, many of them in resolutions high enough to use in print productions. The search tool on this site is particularly good.
Last modified: Thursday, 16 August 2012, 9:21 AM