If you’ve ever looked for free happy birthday graphics, you know it can be challenging to sort through thousands of search engine results. Finding just the right graphic that won’t cost you a cent to use isn’t easy. If you need the image to be royalty-free, you may have an even bigger mountain of research to climb.
There are 7.8 billion people worldwide, and every one of them has an annual birthday. The possibilities of using happy birthday graphics are endless. You might want to create a birthday card, a unique party invitation or a graphic for a Zoom birthday bash. Whatever reason you need happy birthday graphics, we’ve sorted through the available packages and come up with eight we think you’ll love.
Most of the sites below offer options outside of free happy birthday graphics if you need additional vector art resources to flesh out your designs. We’ve sorted through the most popular sites and come up with eight that will meet most needs for birthday images:
1. Pixabay
You’ll find 1,298 birthday pictures on Pixabay. They are all free to use, even for commercial use. The top selection includes images like a woman walking with balloons, a beautiful pink cake and happy birthday words. The free happy birthday graphics on this site are mostly photos, but you’ll also find invitations, cards and advertisements. You can narrow your search to vector graphics or illustrations. Pixabay also offers some short video clips.
2. Clipart Library
The collection of free happy birthday graphics on this site is much smaller, but the images are high-quality. Any of them would work well for a birthday website page or greeting card. You’ll find 63 free happy birthday pics, free for personal use. Each image is bright and colorful, drawing the eye and embodying happiness. The typography varies from modern sans serif to decorative fonts with flowers and butterflies bursting out of the edges.
3. Freepik
Find just the right free happy birthday graphics by utilizing Freepik’s filters. You can sort by the image type, such as vector, photo, .psd file extension or icon. You can choose only those with a free license or search premium offers. Filter down to the most recent uploads or the most popular of all time. Notice the wide variety on this page. You can find nearly any visual you’re looking for and narrow your search to the free choices only.
4. The Graphics Fairy
This website is unique in its offering of rare and vintage images. Again, you won’t find as large a variety as some sites offer, but you’ll discover specific choices you can’t find anywhere else. Check out bird renderings you could easily use as part of a birthday card. The Graphics Fairy does offer a premium membership. However, you can use many of the free happy birthday graphics for personal use without paying a penny.
5. Greetings Island
Find a stellar selection of card graphics for men on this site. You can even personalize and send the card digitally right from the website. If you have a bit more time, download the graphics and tweak them to your liking. The offerings here are best for greeting cards. Other searches turn up cards for women or children. You’ll even find templates for birthday invitations.
6. Icons8
Discover 22 different packages of free happy birthday graphics filled with various clipart and icons. You do have to provide a link if you use their images, but there are no other limitations. Educators often use this site to create material for presentations and worksheets, but it is open to anyone who needs the pictures. You’ll find flat clipart, hand-drawn illustrations and cartoonish drawings.
7. Vecteezy
Vecteezy has thousands of free happy birthday graphics as vectors, and they have a fantastic selection of first birthday images. You’ll find graphics for decorating a party, creating invitations or even scrapbooking. A search for additional birthdays, such as fourth birthdays, turns up other options. The site offers filters for vectors or photos.
You can sort by the newest uploads and choose the free license. They also have some images for editorial use only. You can even narrow the selection down by the shape of the visuals.
8. PNGTree
If you’re looking for birthday backgrounds for a social media banner or website, PNGTree has an excellent selection of free ones. You can even search by color and image type, such as background, wallpaper or banner. Sort by shape to find just the right image for your needs.
Note the expansive selection of wide banners with blank spaces that allow you to personalize a greeting. The free happy birthday graphics on PNGTree are a bit different from the norm but have a specific purpose for online use.
Finding Free Happy Birthday Graphics
Figuring out which graphics you can use royalty-free for personal or commercial use isn’t always easy. The sites above offer either clear indications of their permissions or provide a filtering option to find free images.
How you plan to use the visuals dictates what type of license you need. If in doubt, contact the graphic’s owner and ask if you can use it for the intended purposes. It’s better to pay a small license fee than create a design only to discover you can’t use one of the images. Starting over from scratch puts you behind schedule and can be creatively disappointing, so be sure to check.
About The Author
Eleanor Hecks is the Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, an online publication dedicated to providing in-depth content from the design and marketing industries. When she's not designing or writing code, you can find her exploring the outdoors with her husband and dog in their RV, burning calories at a local Zumba class, or curled up with a good book with her cats Gem and Cali.
You can find more of Eleanor's work at www.eleanorhecks.com.
