Illustration for non-artists: Seeking free/cheap online resources for making very simple graphics

Be careful about trying to find do-it-yourself tools for internet marketing. It's a road to countless hours behind the screen trying to figure out how to do it the quick and easy way.

No matter what graphic software you find, you'll need to master it. Even then, when you find short-cut tools to Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator (because they are complicated programs) you'll find that they all have their limitations to what you're trying to accomplish. Then, you'll be looking for another tool to use in addition to the cheap program that you just learned. And so the circle of info finding, learning the software, and discovering its limitations continues. ......All in the name of shoe stringing your "business".

All that said, if you want to go down that path, look at some software solutions from:

Smith Micro (Google it and look at their products)
Laughing Bird Line of graphic creators

And.......

Use the search feature here in the forum to see what graphic banner creators and other graphic software is being offered in the WSO section.

It speeds me up, I must say.

But my techie skills must be far worse than yours (because they're worse than almost everyone's!): this is something I have no intention of using up my time on, and not a skill-set I'm at all anxious to acquire. Unlike some things, which can be pretty difficult to outsource when you don't know how to do them yourself and are badly placed to judge the quality of what you're buying, this is one area in which it seems to me to be relatively easy to outsource quickly and easily.

Check out:
www.animationfactory.com
www.presentermedia.com

They both are run by the same company. Animation Factory doesn't have "stills", but it's easy enought to take a screen capture shot.

Presenter Media is designed for slideshows and has a good collection of "3d stickmen".

Just find a relevant image and add some text.

Here are a couple of video/slideshow apps. None of these require "Art skills", but remember that "Design skills" (making images look good, image composition, color schemes, lighting, etc.) will always be required to create compelling images. Of course you can learn these design skills without having to become a full-fledged "artist" (I offer tutorials and 1 online course, if you want to PM me):

Sparkol "VideoScribe" (makes those cartoons where a hand draws pictures).

Prezi (Somewhat like Microsoft PowerPoint)

Microsoft PowerPoint (part of some versions of Microsoft Office - try OpenOffice for free)
You can make your own (endlessly cycling) animated ad banners by animating GIF still images.

Do a Google search on:
"slideshow software"
"presentation software"
"animated gif software"

There are dozens at least.
Hope this helps...

I use graphic stock for templates, pictures, and icons. They have great images. All are royalty free and ready to use. Cost is $89 for one year. That is a lot less than most other graphic companies. I am tired of paying istock big bux and getting few images. Pinterest use to have a great embed feature with resize. Sadly, that is now gone.

I like dreamstime for stock images. They aren't cheap, but I find more excellent images and wider variety there and I like their designers selection tools.

When I need free images (like for large numbers of illustrations for technical Kindle books) I use "Google Advanced Image Search" and set the filter there to only show "royalty free images which can be used commercially and can be altered". The selection can be limited, compared to Dreamstime, but I often find something usable - and free is good.

Hope this helps...