The DesignerCandies Mission

The DesignerCandies 101

“When I'm not working from local coffee shops or co-working spaces, this is where the magic happens. DesignerCandies is operated from this small desk, laptop, notebook, cup of coffee & iPad.” – Adam

An introductory 101:

Hi, I'm Adam McIntyre, the creator of DesignerCandies & several other design websites.

If you're new to DesignerCandies, this page is for you!

Quickly, I'm going to explain how & why we do what we do – answering as many of your questions as I can along the way.

You probably have questions like:

  • How does DesignerCandies make money?
  • Am I allowed to download everything?
  • Are there download limits?
  • Is commercial use allowed?
  • Can I use your resources in premium apps and templates?

I am going to answer all of those questions very quickly below. But let's put it this way: DesignerCandies just became your new favourite website for graphic design resources.

We love the graphic design community

How does DesignerCandies make money?

Right now DesignerCandies does not earn a single penny. Nada. Not a cent. We show no advertisements on site, we have no affiliate links and we do not sell any products. If DesignerCandies were a person, it would be broke and homeless or living in its sister's guest room.

As of August 23rd 2014, we have introduced a small advertisement at the top of the page to help pay the bills.

This ad will help us keep the site growing and publishing new resources. Since the launch of DCandies 8 months ago (January 2014), the site has become an incredibly popular resource that we want to keep supporting.

On September 22nd 2014, we published our Premium Resource Bundle to add a more effective income stream and help supplement the cost of running the site. As with all the work we publish, our Premium Resource Bundle contains nothing but exceptional quality tools to help designers.

How do you keep the site online then?

**Added on August 23rd 2014**

Even with an advertisement at the top of the page, DCandies is still piggy-backing on the resources I use to run my other websites and does not pay for itself.

I didn't expect the site to become the popular resource that it has, and as so I would like for the site to start supporting itself.

To do this, an advertisement is a small step in the right direction to monetisation. I am planning to introduce a premium section on the site for those who would like to support our candy-makin' mission as I believe a premium product is a far more effective way to keep the site's mission alive.

I (Adam) already run several websites that make enough money for me to live the life I want to live. So currently, DesignerCandies doesn't need to make money. It can continue to take a free ride on my server and keep being the cool side project that it is for the foreseeable future.

But let me be clear, this is not to say DesignerCandies won't make money in future by showing ads or selling a product. We might do (we might have to), and these are honest and reputable ways to make money from a website. But whatever – right now DesignerCandies is just a super-cool website that I run in my spare time.

**Added on September 22nd 2014**

As originally mentioned in our Mission, selling a product is a reputable way for a website to make money. We launched our own premium product on September 22nd 2014 to help offset the cost of running DesignerCandies.

The product contains exceptional, high quality resources that have been made by the same folks producing the freebies you love so much. The realistic paint brushes included in the bundle were actually produced on my apartment floor!

This passion, effort and dedication to quality resources keeps us in line with our mission to empower graphic designers around the world, whilst also helping ourselves to keep the site alive.

(p.s, the Premium Resource Bundle does not make us a profit)

We don't ask for donations. If you would like to make some sort of donation (btw Thanks!), the best “donation” you could offer is to send the DesignerCandies.net link to a friend or coworker who you think will benefit from our free content, and spread the DCandies name. (If you would like you can now directly contribute to the site by purchasing the Dcandies Premium Resource Bundle)

DesignerCandies Uncopyright

Why do you offer all your freebies into the public domain?

You may have noticed in our posts and freebies that we refer to our downloads (and as a matter of a fact, everything on DesignerCandies words and all) as “Uncopyrighted”. You can read more about it on the Uncopyright page.

There are many reasons why we've chosen to do this, the most important being:

  1. Copyright restricts creativity
  2. Copyright is hard to enforce if you're not a huge profiteering corporation
  3. People who abuse and disrespect artistic content are the sort of people who don't care about licenses or copyright anyway

It's all about respect.

It's that third point which is the biggest motivation (at least for me) to publish all DesignerCandies content into the public domain.

I have been creating and publishing both free and premium digital content into the web-o-sphere for years. I have found that no matter what restrictions are put in place, people who have no respect for such content will never adhere to those restrictions.

Whether it's asking to be given credit for work done or limiting what said work can be used for, if someone does not respect those limitations or rules, they will not abide by them.

However, on the flipside, people who do have respect for the hard work and effort put into creating useful artistic resources – whether free or premium – will show their respect for such content and use such resources in a respectful and endearing manner whether asked to or not.

Because it's all about respect.

Do you limit downloads & can they be used in premium apps, templates and products?

To answer the first part: no we do not limit downloads. You don't even need to sign up for them – just click download.

Regarding use of our assets in premium products and templates:

As mentioned in the above section and on our Uncopyright page, we publish all our resources into the Public Domain (see Wikipedia definition). This means we forfeit all copyright and ownership of the resources we give away.

Once we make a resource available for download, it can be used for absolutely anything. This means you can use any DesignerCandies free Resource for any purpose, whether in a premium download product, iPhone app, web template etc.

Do I need to give credit to DesignerCandies when I use a resource?

No, not at all. Our resources are public domain. Use them as you wish. You do not need to give links, credits or any other mention of DesignerCandies when using our content.

So what exactly is the DesignerCandies Mission?

The mission is simple: To build a website and library of useful resources that are free from restriction and help fuel creativity within the graphic design community.

By planting the seed and promoting the use of restriction free public domain content within the art & design community, I hope to see others following suit – not just by sharing unrestricted resources, but by respecting the content that is made available to us by hard working and passionate individuals.

Furthermore, providing such a wealth of resources will become especially useful for both professional designers and those who're just starting out – those who've just clicked on Photoshop for the first time and Google'd for their first Photoshop tutorial. I'm sure you can remember the days.

I know when I entered the world of design at 14 years old, there were few websites making high quality assets available (free) for me to learn with – now I make my living with those exact same tools and by selling those resources; which puts me in a fantastic position to give back.


Links mentioned in the above video: DesignerCandies Newletter can be found here & you can like our Facebook page here.

You can also join over 1,000 other people and subscribe to Adam's personal page here.

Credits to TheNounProject.com for icons used.