5 Free Creative Tools You Need to Use
Being a creative can be hard. It becomes even harder when we are working on a tight budget. Where are we going to find stock photos, music, inspiration, the list goes on and on. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some list that told us where to find all of this stuff for free?
Well now there is. I have scoured the internet for years as a creative in the Church world trying to find the best free resources, and here are the sites that I keep coming back to time and time again. Below are 5 resources that I use almost every day when I create content for churches all across the nation. Not only do I use these, but I endorse them 100% they are some of my favorite tools and I can’t recommend them enough.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the list!
1. We Transfer
As creatives, we work in big files. You know, After Effects files, Premiere files, film assets, etc. These files can be huge and very cumbersome to send to anyone outside of the coffee shop we are working in. The traditional methods are Dropbox, Google Drive, or an AWS server (if you’re smart and can set that up).
However the problem with all of these is, eventually you run out of space. Not only that, but typically you are competing with other documents or crud that you can’t delete.
Before you delete anything check out WeTransfer.
WeTransfer is a free, online tool that allows you to send any file up to 2GB FOR FREE. Seriously it works. What’s even better is that you can put your colleague’s email directly into the message and send it straight to their inbox. Once they receive it, all they have to do is click a download link and they it is theirs.
We use this all the time to send progress updates or rough cuts to clients. It’s a great tool when you are fighting for space or working remotely.
Seeds is a fantastic tool created by Church on the Move (check them out here). Seeds is a collection of creative elements that have been used by Church on the Move for years. Some of this content include: music, sermon graphics, live production assets, worship backgrounds, dramas, and so much more.
If you need some inspiration or an amazing element to put the finishing touch on your project look no further than Seeds.
Look at some of what we found after looking for only 5 minutes:
Royalty Free Music — if you don’t know the term get very comfortable with it, it is your best friend. Most music we hear requires a license to use (for instance, when you hear the latest Selena Gomez song in a movie, that studio payed Selena’s record label A LOT of money to get the rights use it in their film, and anyone who wants to use that song needs to do the same. This is why so many YouTube videos get striked for using music in their videos).
The way to get around this is to use what’s called Royalty Free Music. There are a lot of sites that are good places to find royalty free music, but one of the best around is YouTube’s Audio Library.
YouTube has hundreds of tracks with ranging moods, lengths, and tempos. In addition, they have some killer sound effects.
Not to mention, the site is so easy to navigate. You can filter the music by mood, genre, instrument, or duration. That makes finding the perfect track so easy. We use the YouTube Audio Library all the time to find perfect tracks for our films.
Don’t just take our word for it, listen for yourself then go explore!
4. Open Church
Open Church is very similar to Seeds. It is a free, open network of assets, training tools, apps, etc. created by Life.Church. Open Church helps your ministry in almost every area. What’s really cool about Open Church is the fact that there is more than just one church on the platform. There are A LOT of churches— Fresh Life, Life.Church, Elevation, and Hillsong to name a few.
The content. The content can be summed up in one word— extraordinary. This is one of the most comprehensive, fabulous, game-changing content that has ever been shown/used within church walls. AND IT’S ALL FREE. Seriously, if your church needs assets you need to be looking on this site. It is one of the best.
Take a look at some of the stuff that we found:
5. Unsplash
Stock photos. They are the lifeblood of any creative designer. They allow us to go anywhere, capture anything, tell any story, and do it all without leaving our desk. However, they can be VERY expensive. Not to mention, the little that are free aren’t very good. In fact, they usually are down right terrible. That is until Unsplash.
Unsplash is a free stock photo database that allows users to upload their own photos. This means that the pics on here are of a superior quality. They are the kind of photos that would be featured on Instagram, not in a brochure at the doctor’s office.
Those photos can then be downloaded by anyone, anywhere, at anytime. This is fantastic. We love Unsplash so much. In fact, we use Unsplash photos on about 90% of everything we put out.
Take a look at 3 pics from the front-page of Unsplash (you might want to click these to expand them):
BONUS: The Works
The Works is a brand new resource from Sermon Works. Inside of The Works you will find After Effects templates, videos, graphics, B-Roll, along with anything and everything that we think you could use to further your ministry. All of which is created by our Sermon Works team (no copyright issues here!)
Best of all it’s COMPLETELY FREE.
You read that right! We want to give you all of this media completely free. Literally we don’t want anything from you, so go over there right now and start impacting those that God has planted around you.
That’s It
That’s all the free resources that we have for now. However, if you still feel a little overwhelmed or need some help with things let us know! We have a team full of creative geniuses who have a passion to see the name of Jesus lifted high. But what do we do? Everything. Click the button below to check out our services.
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