What is Clipart?
A clipart is an image or graphic used in printed materials, scrapbooks, webpages, ad posters and banners, and all other things that need images. Images drawn by the hand or with the aid of a computer program are called cliparts. These images may be animated graphics or may serve as background drawing.

The idea of clipart started with cutting out images from books and magazines. Since there were no computers yet in the past, people made graphical projects by drawing images by the hand or by using illustrations or images from existing printed materials and cutting it out. These images are then placed on some piece of paper or board through adhesives like pastes and tapes. By the time personal computers were born in the 80s, electronic ways to draw and handle images paved the way for “desktop publishing”. First, digital pre-drawn images were available for computer users to use in their art and design projects. Later on, computer programs became more sophisticated to allow editing on the images and pictures. Customization became possible with tools to change image size, color, and background.

Electronic or “web” cliparts was widely used in business presentations and other office needs in the past. And this trend continues to today, where everybody has access to millions of cliparts for use at home, in school, or at the office. Many people also use cliparts for various publications like company or school newsletters, books, magazines, and craft projects. Cliparts now have “animated” features making images move and/or “blink”. These animated versions are widely used on webpages which may be commercial or personal. Clipart making softwares are also widely available on the market. Some are free and some comes with a fee. There are also a lot of websites now that allow free downloading of millions of clipart images to satisfy the user’s designing needs.