Welcome to Reconcile Digest #23. I’m so glad you’re here.
As many of you know, one of our core methodologies is that art is the perfect collaborator for research. Here at Reconcile, we use visual design as a conduit to a more engaging, equitable world where aesthetics and beautifully curated digests actually support our communities’ understanding of the research we translate.
Read more about the concept of design justice in digest #17 and about our design methodology here.
Anyway, today’s digest is a resource talking you through how to find images in the public domain. In the process of writing and editing research digests, I spend a lot of time going through archives to look for objects, artefacts and visuals that complement or support the research, and paired with my illustration practice that goes back 8 years, I have built up a good list of sources for where I find the best visuals.
Paired with the list below, you’ll also find a super-lite crash course on what open access/public domain/creative commons actually is, so you know you are using these archives ethically and correctly. At the end, I share a fascinating research paper titled:
‘Freeing Digital Images at Last? The interplay of copyright, public domain, new technologies, and ethics in museum reproductions of visual art’
which also helped inform this digest. Each archive source is hyperlinked. Take your time and enjoy these archives. There is so much magic to find here. If you want help thinking about how these visual archives might connect to your work - comment or email back any time. Happy to talk it through.
