Open Peeps
🍀 Directory Note
"The character library to reach for when a product needs people with personality and the license file needs to say one word: CC0."
About Open Peeps
Open Peeps is a hand-drawn illustration library published at openpeeps.com. Instead of finished scenes, it ships people as parts: vector arms, legs, bodies, hairstyles, facial expressions, clothing, and accessories that combine like building blocks. The site puts the possible combinations at over 584,688, and the parts are made to be mixed in design tools such as Figma, Sketch, and XD, in standing and sitting poses, then recoloured from the default black and white to match a brand palette.\n\nThe license is the reason this entry exists. The site's own page states that the library is in the public domain under the CC0 License, and spells out what that means: you can copy, modify, distribute, remix, and use the work, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission. No attribution is required. Downloads are offered from the official site, so take the files there rather than from a re-upload, and keep a note of the CC0 statement with your project files the way you would for any library.
Primary Use Cases
- 1Onboarding and empty-state characters
- 2Personas and user journey storyboards
- 3Help centre and documentation illustration
- 4Marketing pages that need a recurring cast
- 5Comics, invitations, and editorial spots
Technical Data
Format
Vector components (SVG-ready parts for Figma, Sketch, XD, and similar tools)
Contents
Mix-and-match bodies, hairstyles, expressions, clothing, and accessories; over 584,688 combinations per the project site
Style
Hand-drawn black line illustration, recolourable
License
CC0 1.0 Universal, public domain (stated on openpeeps.com)
Source
openpeeps.com
Expert Audit & Verdict
Most illustration libraries sell you finished scenes and dare you to find one that matches your product. Open Peeps takes the opposite bet: people as parts. Bodies, heads, hairstyles, expressions, clothing, and accessories arrive as separate vector components, and the character in your onboarding flow is one you assembled, in the pose your layout needed, wearing something close to what your users wear.
The official site counts over 584,688 possible combinations, and the number is plausible because the system multiplies: a handful of bodies times hairstyles times expressions times clothing times accessories compounds fast. In practice the win is not the total, it is control. A persona set can share one drawing voice across ages, presentations, and moods without commissioning new art for each addition, and a product state illustration can put the same character in the success scene and the error scene.
The style is a loose black line, closer to a notebook sketch than to the flat corporate vector look. That is a strength and a boundary. It gives small products a warmth that stock illustration rarely manages, and it recolours well because the art is line plus flat fills. It will not sit comfortably inside a bank-grade design system or next to photoreal product renders, and teams should decide that on the first screen, not the fifteenth.
Licensing is as simple as this category gets. The project's own page states the library is in the public domain under the CC0 License, usable for commercial purposes without asking permission, and CC0 carries no attribution requirement. Download from the official site, keep a record of the license statement with the project, and the paperwork is done. There is no paid tier steering the free files toward an upgrade and no per-seat counting.
The trade is assembly time. A finished-scene library is faster for a one-off blog header. Open Peeps pays off when a project needs a cast rather than a picture: onboarding, personas, storyboards, help centres, and product states that recur across a whole interface.
Bottom line: choose Open Peeps when your product needs recurring characters with a hand-drawn voice and a public domain license that never needs revisiting. Build a small internal kit of pre-assembled characters on day one and the assembly cost disappears for the rest of the project.
Directory Analysis & Suitability
Key Advantages
- CC0 public domain terms: commercial use, modification, and redistribution with no attribution and no permission step
- Component construction means characters can match the scene, pose, and cast a project actually needs
- Hand-drawn line style stays recognisable at small sizes and recolours cleanly to a brand palette
Considerations
- One drawing voice only; the sketchy line will fight polished corporate or photoreal brand systems
- You assemble the characters yourself, so a scene takes longer than downloading a finished illustration
- No backgrounds or spot scenes in the same system; settings have to come from elsewhere
Platform Compatibility
Web Environment
Excellent. Export assembled characters as SVG for product pages, empty states, and docs.
Mobile & Touch
Very good for onboarding and persona work; keep line weights in mind at small sizes.
Desktop Software
Excellent in Figma, Sketch, and XD where the parts are native components.
