Inspire Me: A Guide to Finding Your Daily Design Fix

Where do you find your daily design inspiration? After To Work Or Play (obvious choice), NJ shows you some awesome sites to get your fill.

A wise man once wrote “Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour films, music, books, paintings, poems, photographs, conversations, dreams, trees, architecture, street signs, clouds, light and shadows…authenticity is invaluable. Originality is non-existent”. This rallying cry was written by Paul Arden in Whatever you think, think the opposite, and I couldn’t agree more.

I’m constantly on the hunt for inspiration in everything. I save sites I find useful in my Pocket favourites (FYI you need this app in your life) and keep a notepad/phone handy at all times, like a designer version of the underdog reporter in an average-to-poor thriller.

The moment a big brief hits my desk the first thing I try to do is research, and absorb the things I find. I’m a true believer that this is a vital step in approaching any design work but one that is often overlooked. Here’s some sites to aid you on your search for greatness:

>> Creative Bloq

Computer Arts is the bible of the design world. True fact. So, in addition to the print mag, the lovely folk from Future Publishing give us Creative Bloq. Bursting to the brim with useful design inspiration, this should be a site you open daily.

>> Pinterest

One of my faves. Some people may be under the illusion that Pinterest is a tool for girls to fantasise about their weddings, but brush the tuille to one side and there’s actually a whole world of design waiting to be discovered. View our Pinterest boards here to get you started.

>> Behance

Behance is essentially a collection of portfolio sites brought together in one space, showcasing what the best creative talent has to offer. It’s a platform for showing off real craft, and also a great tool to create a free, pretty bloody stylish portfolio.

>> Design Inspiration

Design inspiration carefully select beautiful creative from designers around the world. Also very useful for devising colour palettes using a nifty tool that allows you to search the site by colour.

>> Twibfy

Newcomer site Twibfy could be THE social network for designers. Create, collect, organise and submit images, videos, art and design from around the www and share at your will.

>> It’s Nice That

It’s Nice That does exactly as the name suggests: gives your eyes lots of nice things to look at. Often showcasing new creative talents, especially in branding and advertising, the site only exhibits work they deem fit for your viewing pleasure.

>> Design Taxi

Driven by ideas, Design Taxi collates global happenings with the best of art, advertising, photography, illustration, architecture, fashion, packaging…the list goes on. I browse this site daily and find it particularly useful for stimulation of all kinds. They are a great one to follow socially for bite-sized pockets of motivation.

>> Inspiration Grid

Well, it’s a grid full of inspiration really.

>> And then there’s the awards sites

Awwwards, D&AD and FWA are all very useful and respected sites that offer ooodles of inspiration, new trends and ideas from up and coming creatives around the globe.

If that list doesn’t give you something to trigger a new idea (or indeed ‘borrow’ an idea from somewhere else), I don’t know what will.

Words by – NJ hairy girl лайм займ личный кабинет входзайм екапуста личный кабинетзайм на киви без регистрации карты займ экспресс на длительный срокзайм от частного лица москвагде взять займ с плохой кредитной историей