LibGuides: Communication and Design Arts: Visual Communication Design

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Oxford Grove Art Online
Oxford Grove Art Online offers dictionary articles and images, about artists, works of art, schools of art, etc. Searches. May be filtered by Medium, Era, Date, Region/Country, Field, Occupation, etc.
The foremost scholarly art encyclopedia, updated regularly and covering global art and architecture from prehistory to present day. Includes peer-reviewed articles contributed by nearly 7,000 scholars from around the world, accompanied by images, bibliographies, and links to additional resources.
Communication and Mass Media Complete
Communication and Mass Media Complete provides the most robust, quality research solution in areas related to communication and mass media.
JSTOR (articles)
JSTOR includes scholarship published in high quality academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. (Journal issues for the most current years may not be available.) These journals may also be searched from the library catalog.
Humanities full-text (H.W. Wilson)
Full-text from over 290+ scholarly journals dating back to 1995, and citation indexing for another 400 journals dating back to 1984. Includes articles, interviews, obituaries, and original works of fiction, drama and poetry. Also includes reviews of books, dance, plays, films, operas, television and more.

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JURN: Search Millions of Free Academic Articles, Chapters and Theses
"JURN is a unique search tool which helps you find free academic articles and books. JURN harnesses all the power of Google, but focusses your search through a hand-crafted and curated index. Established in 2009 to comprehensively cover the arts and humanities, in 2014 JURN expanded in scope. JURN now also covers selected university fulltext repositories and many additional ejournals in science, biomedical, business and law. In 2015/6 JURN expanded again, adding over 600 ejournals on aspects of the natural world."
More Visual Communication Design Databases

Journal of Computer Mediated Communication
1995 to Present
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
2005-Present
IInternational Journal of Art and Design Education
2000-2021

Ad* Access
The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.
Ad Views
"Thousands of television commercials created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency, dated 1950s - 1980s."
AIGA Design Archives
"The AIGA Design Archives is a vital record of all disciplines of communication design." Includes graphics, book covers, illustrations, etc. Includes search by color function.
artdaily.org
The self-proclaimed "First Newspaper on the Internet," artdaily.com was founded in 1996, a year after its sister publication Museos was published in print and online. While the publication focuses on a wide range of arts — from architecture to digital arts — its strong suit is daily international art news and its own special reports. The site also offers some fun features, including 360-degree images of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and the Prado in Madrid; almost thirty 3D images of famous architectural jewels, including the Empire State Building, Stonehenge, the Coliseum in Rome, and the Sphinx; a weekly art puzzle; and comments and feedback from readers around the world.
Artforum
Artforum is a website and monthly magazine that focuses on contemporary art.
The Bauhaus Online Collection
Includes typographic and design examples.
Design Observer
Covers a variety of design topics and includes critical articles, essays, podcasts and interviews of and by international designers and others involved in the design field.
Hyperallergic
"Hyperallergic is a leading voice in contemporary perspectives on art, culture, and more. It is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today."
International Dada Archive
Founded in 1979 as part of the Dada Archive and Research Center, the International Dada Archive is a scholarly resource for the study of the historic Dada movement. A comprehensive collection of documentation and scholarship relating to Dada, the International Dada Archive is made up of works by and about the Dadaists including books, articles, microfilmed manuscript collections, videorecordings, sound recordings, and computer files.
openculture
Open Culture: Art explores cultural and educational media (podcasts, videos, online courses, etc.) that’s freely available on the web, and that makes learning dynamic, productive, and fun. We sift through all the media, highlight the good and jettison the bad, and centralize it in one place.
PRINT
"...where creative people gather to inspire and build design dialogue."
Smarthistory: a multimedia web-book about art and art history
Smarthistory.org is a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.
Vintage Ad Browser
Browse over 100,000 vintage advertisements. Includes propaganda art, military posters, leaflets and flyers, comics, etc.

Color Scheme Designer
A very useful Javascript tool for developing a suite of colors that “play well together.”
I Love Typography
Blog includes information on type history, making fonts, articles and links related to typography. Sponsored by Fonts by Hoefler & Co.
iWantHue
Color palette tool.
Symbols
"The world's largest resource for symbols, signs and flags."

American Memory Home - Library of Congress
Search the historical digitized photograph archives at the Library of Congress.
ArtCyclopedia
Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative
The Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative of the ATLA and ATS is a repository of digital resources contributed by member libraries...The CDRI database provides access to digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography.
Creative Commons Search
"Find content you can share, use and remix."
Morguefile
"Free images for creatives, by creatives
A post production file, over 350,000 free stock photos for commercial use."
National Geographic Photography
Includes National Geographic Photo of the Day archives and many other photographs from around the world.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
"This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more."
Visual Arts Data Service
Free art and design images for education. "VADS provides a considerable portfolio of visual art collections comprising over 140,000 images that are freely available and copyright cleared for use in learning, teaching and research in the UK."

Artists Network
Our mission is to empower artists with the techniques, knowledge, ideas and inspirations that help ignite their visions and bring them to life. We put those possibilities in your hands through compelling print publications, online media, video education and real-time experiences.

American Printing History Association (APHA)
The American Printing History Association encourages the study of printing history and its related arts and skills, including calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. APHA is especially, but by no means exclusively, interested in American printing history.
College Art Association (CAC)
The College Art Association promotes excellent scholarship and teaching in the history and criticism of the visual arts, and creativity and technical skill in the teaching and practice of art. It also honors the highest ethical standards in the conduct of the profession.
Indiana Arts Commission (IAC)
The Indiana Arts Commission is a government agency that advocates arts development opportunities across the state, and stewards effective use of public and private resources for the arts. It stimulates public interest in, and participation with, Indiana's diverse arts resources and cultural heritage. The Arts Commission works to enhance public awareness of the arts, life-long learning opportunities, and arts education programs.
Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)
The Industrial Designers Society of America is the world's oldest, largest, member-driven society for product design, industrial design, interaction design, human factors, ergonomics, design research, design management, universal design and related design fields.
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector.

Louvre Museum Official Website
The Musée du Louvre houses 35,000 works of art drawn from eight departments, displayed in over 60,000 square meters of exhibition space dedicated to the permanent collections. Explore the works on display, taking a thematic or cross-departmental approach.
The Met's Artworks Collection
National Museum of American Illustration
The National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI) was founded in 1998 by Judy Goffman Cutler and Laurence Cutler to house their art collection primarily from the 'Golden Age of Illustration" but comparing and exhibiting illustration from all periods, styles, and venues. The Museum’s American Imagist Collection features masterpieces of illustrative art and is the largest such collection in the world. Illustrators combine personal expression with pictorial representation in order to convey ideas.
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists.
Vatican Museums
The Vatican has acquired a remarkably rich collection of historically and aesthetically valuable objects: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescos and rooms full of Raphael paintings, of course; but also Egyptian, Etruscan, and major "ethnological" pieces as well. This Web site offers easy and attractive access to these collections through informative texts and thoughtfully chosen coordinated images.