Trends / Inspiration / Ideas / Things to borrow…
Whatever you use design blogs for it’s always useful to have a bunch of go-to spaces to spark ideas. Here’s my list of sites to visit regularly:
1. Creative Boom
Creative Boom is one of the UK’s leading platforms dedicated to the creative industries. Founded in 2009, it delivers news, inspiration, insight and advice to seven million creative professionals every year. As well as showcasing the latest work and interviewing leading practitioners from around the world, in recent years, they also include a podcast and an online shop selling bespoke prints, so readers can support fellow creatives directly.
2. Abduzeedo
Running since 2006, Abduzeedo is a collective of bloggers sharing articles about design, photography, and UX. It’s moved with the times over the years and is particularly strong on 3D work. Just in case you were wondering, the name means abducted in Portuguese.
3. Typewolf
Typewolf is unique amongst typography blogs. Not only does it offer unparalleled commentary on the latest typefaces and an archive of reviews of older ones, but it also showcases their use out in the wild. This is a great way to keep up-to-date with the latest type trends, and there are some valuable learning resources here too.
4. Mirador
The blog of Say What Studio, a graphic design duo based in Paris, France, Mirador curates the most inspirational creative projects around and emphasises great visuals. If you’re looking for image eye candy, this is a great place to head.
5. Friends of Type
Friends of Type focuses on original typographic design and lettering, and fresh visual content is posted pretty much every day. Most of the work on this blog is created by four people: Aaron Carámbula, Erik Marinovich, Dennis Payongayong and Jason Wong, and on the last week of the month, they feature a guest designer.
6. Behance Graphic Design Gallery
Founded in 2005 and bought by Adobe in 2012, Behance is a hugely popular platform for hosting online portfolios. With so many creatives using it, though, it can be difficult to find the diamonds in the haystack. And so this blog carefully curates the latest and best graphic design work to hit Behance, including posters, logos, branding and packaging.
7. The Dieline
If you work in packaging design, The Dieline is your go-to, bringing you the latest news and case studies from the profession. This blog on a mission is to build a global community of practitioners and to help move the packaging industry towards more sustainable solutions.
8. Incredible Types
Incredible Types is a curated collection and showcase of outstanding typography and design worldwide. This regularly updated blog has 426 case studies in its showcase from 432 creatives and studios from 51 different countries.
9. Eye Magazine
Eye Magazine is a quarterly print magazine on graphic design and visual culture, and its blog is packed with highbrow writing about the design industry and the latest trends. Whatever topic they cover, you’re going to find informed and carefully thought-through commentary here.
10. I Love Typography
Claiming to be the world’s most popular typography blog, you’ll find posts on typography, type history, font creation, printmaking, calligraphy, and plenty more on I Love Typography. You’ll also see links that enable you to buy the latest fonts from indie foundries.
11. Identity Designed
David Airey is a well-respected writer on visual identity design, and his blog showcases some of the best brand identities worldwide. There are hundreds of projects on these pages, from designers in Mexico, Sweden, Vietnam, the USA, France, Australia, Brazil and England.
12. Aisle One Digest
Aisle One is a visual journal of design, photography, film, music and culture. In 2021, it relaunched as a weekly newsletter called Aisle One Digest. It’s free to subscribe, with an optional member subscription for those who want to support the endeavour.
13. Under Consideration: Brand New
Under Consideration is probably the most well-respected blog focused on corporate and brand identity work. When a major company launches a new logo or branding, it’s often the first to cover it, and the analysis is always in-depth and insightful.
14. Design Made in Germany
Are you seeking visual inspiration? Design Made in Germany shares a ton of new work from German firms across the creative industries. It doesn’t really matter if you can’t understand German because the main focus is on project photography.
15. Print.pm
As you might expect from the name, Print.Pm offers daily inspiration for print lovers. Curated by French art director Martin Joubert, the focus is on editorial content, featuring a lot of arty-looking books and magazines.
16. Designspiration
Designspiration was created in 2010 by Shelby White. The blog’s aim is to provide curated inspiration for creatives, seeing itself as both a hub for creativity and a tool for collecting and sharing ideas.
17. Consumer Packaged Goods Directory
The Consumer Packaged Goods Directory is a great resource for brand-builders, tech leaders, investors and founders. They have a network of industry experts who help them find the fastest-growing emerging consumer brands. They share five new brands weekly in their newsletter and add them to their online directory.
18. Google Design
As you’d imagine, the world’s fourth-biggest company knows a bit about design. And it shares some of its insights on this blog, which covers both Google’s products and services and the wider world of modern design.
19. BP&O
BP&O, which stands for Branding, Packaging and Opinion, was founded by Richard Baird, who works for global clients on brand identity and packaging. Its design blog is a must-read for anyone wanting to catch up on the latest projects from across the profession, with insightful and well-researched commentary.
20. Design Clever
Design Clever sets out to showcase talented designers worldwide, and they encourage creatives everywhere to submit their work to it. There’s not a lot of text, but you can’t move here for inspirational visual candy.
21. This Too Shall Grow
This Too Shall Grow is a one-person UX studio, consultancy, and coaching practice handled by Clo S. Her blog focuses on mindful UX – tech that respects people’s mental health and privacy – and digital wellness: improving the relationship between our devices and our mind.
22. Fonts In Use Blog
Fonts In Use delivers just what it promises. This independent archive of typography in the wild is a treasure trove for designers. And it’s easy to find what you’re looking for, as every post is indexed by typeface, format, and industry.
23. Masterpicks
Masterpicks is an image-led blog that presents a new, hand-picked design project every day. Covering UX and UI design, illustration, animation, 3D art, graphic design, branding, industrial design and photography, there’s a real breadth and depth to the work that’s featured here.
24. Frank Chimero
Frank Chimero is a huge name in the design community, so it’s worth reading his thoughts on this much-visited site. Like the best blogs, there’s no strict rule about what Frank writes about, but whatever the topic, it’s always relevant, fascinating and eye-opening stuff.
25. Alphabettes
Alphabettes.org aims to promote the work of women in lettering, typography, and type design. As of December 2021, this loose network of creatives has more than 250 members from around the world, working in various areas and levels of activity.
26. Spotify
Most of us don’t think about it often, but for an audio brand, Spotify is highly driven by visual design. Its blog focused purely on internal projects, and it’s revelatory to know just how important design is to the success of the platform and how they approach it.
27. Wix Creative
Wix is a cloud-based platform for creating your website, and its blog has a great selection of tips and inspiration for those who are doing so. You’ll find useful articles on everything from user personas to free fonts on this informative site.
28. Dribbble
Work-sharing platform Dribbble is a design industry institution, and its blog is well worth a look too. It’s packed with interviews, process articles and inspirational pieces by top creatives.
29. Design Made In Japan
Who doesn’t love Japanese culture… but how much do you really know about it? To save you from spouting cliches about Asian nature, Design Made In Japan keeps you up to date with the latest editorial, product and packaging design. And if you’re inspired to work there yourself, there’s a jobs board too.
30. Mindsparkle
Mindsparkle is a daily online design blog highlighting new trends in the world of web design, video, graphic design, art, architecture and photography. It sports a quite lovely design of its own, too, allowing the work featured here to truly sing.
31. Femme Type
Founded by Amber Weaver in 2019, Femme Type celebrates the work of type designers and type-focused creatives who identify as women. Its blog covers the multiple collaborations and projects it’s involved with, including a book, print magazine, and partnership with Adobe Live. You’ll also find a ton of video type tutorials to help improve your skills.
32. Women of Graphic Design
Women of Graphic Design is focused on exhibiting the contributions of women in graphic design and exploring issues of gender equality in education provided by design institutions. Its Tumblr blog is currently on hiatus, but there are plenty of archived posts to get stuck into.
33. Designer News
Describing itself as “where the design community meets”, Designer News pulls in the latest exciting posts from around the web, from Behance and Medium to individual designers’ websites. The community then upvotes and downvotes them and adds their comments.
34. Admire the Web
Admire the Web is a great source of web design inspiration from around the web. Curated by freelance developer Tom Hopcraft, the emphasis here is firmly on minimal, clean and responsive website layouts.
35. Httpster
Another place to find inspiring examples of web design, Httpster is a curated showcase of websites with a less-is-more bent. It’s curated by Dominic Whittle and Tom Fitzgerald.
36. Site Inspire
Curated by Howells Studio, Siteinspire is a showcase of the finest web and interactive designs, with 7,418 sites currently featured on the blog. You can filter by style, type, or subject, so it’s easy to find the kind of thing you’re looking for.
37. Logo Design Love
Another great blog by David Airey, this one is devoted to logos, symbols, icons, and marks. It’s packed with reports on the latest logos, with incisive commentary, as well as covering related news, such as new books about logos.
38. The Inspiration Grid
Running since 2011, Inspiration Grid is a well-respected showcase celebrating creative talent from around the world. A great place to get a daily fix of design, art, illustration, typography, photography and more.
39. Visuelle
Visuelle is an image-led showcase and visual feed curated by David Bennett, creative director at OPX. It’s open to all creatives, the only criteria being: “If it’s great, it goes on”. You can filter posts by digital, graphic design, illustration, motion, photography and typography.
40. Sites We Like
One of the most explanatory blog titles we can think of, this German blog shares exceptional examples of web design. Bookmark it for your daily dose of inspiration.
41. AIGA: Eye on Design
AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts) has its own blog, Eye on Design, and it’s packed with thoughtfully curated work and high-quality insight. With contributors from around the world, you get quite astonishing depth and breadth in the types of creative works and practitioners it covers.
42. The Newspaper Club
Print’s not dead! The Newspaper Club gives creative people the tools to turn whatever they want into newsprint quickly and easily as a way of sharing their work and stories. The blog is populated with tips, advice and inspiration for crafting your own newspaper.
43. Work in Progress
File sharing app DropBox doesn’t just want to be a functional service: it wants to get under the skin of the creative community that supports it and give something back. Hence its design blog, Work In Progress, shares customer stories in a well researched and beautifully presented way, along with useful updates on DropBox itself.
44. Ambalaj
Ambalaj is a packaging design blog founded by Kristina de Verdier in 2008. Bringing you the latest news from the world of consumer insights, design and technology, it’s grown into one of the world’s most influential sites for creative inspiration.
45. 8Faces
Curated by Jamie Clarke and Elliot Jay Stocks, 8Faces is the blog of their eponymous, font-focused print magazine. Here you’ll find inspirational typography, beautiful lettering projects, reviews of new fonts and related resources, and interviews with leading type and graphic designers.
46. Baubauhaus
Curated by Romanian duo Stefan Lucut and Andrei Don, Baubauhaus aims to feed your daily need for design, illustration, photography, fashion and art. Their stated aim is to visually inspire and entertain by sharing the best work they come across.
47. Savee
Proudly made by “immigrants in America”, Savee allows you to browse and save curated inspiration from designers worldwide. Its mission is simple: to provide visual inspiration without ads. If you want to be featured, just tag them with your work on social media.
48. The Designer and the Grid
The Designer and the Grid offers a collection of minimalist and ‘griddy’ designs that continue and evolve the tradition of modernism in the contemporary world. It’s expertly created by Sarah Schrauwen, a book designer and editor from Antwerp, Belgium.
49. Land-book
Land-book is a web design inspiration gallery that showcases the best designs of the moment to help you find inspiration and motivation in your own career. There’s no explanatory text, but there are beautiful visuals here aplenty.
50. Commerce Cream
Shopify is a code-free platform for creating your own e-commerce store, but what if you have no idea what it should look like? Then check out their blog, which brings you the cream of Shopify sites on a regular basis. A great way to discover that e-commerce doesn’t have to look dull but can be as imaginative and creative in its design as any other website.