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33 New Places to Get Design Inspiration

Collis Ta'eed

The quality of design sites around has just been escalating and escalating. Last year we published two articles on finding design inspiration - 34 Places to Get Design Inspiration On and Off and the follow up 60 More Places to Get Design Inspiration. Since then I’ve been collecting new sites that didn’t make those two lists, and today I’m happy to deliver 33 New Places to Get Design Inspiration! Without further ado:

1. Depthcore

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Into digital art, 3d, and visual goodness? Look no further.

2. Rasterized

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Another old school art group

3. DesignFlavr

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DesignFlavr is my favourite new inspiration site by a country mile. Great content, great categories.

4. Before & After Magazine

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It’s not all free, but there is some good stuff to be found here

5. SmashingMagazine’s Inspiration Category

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SmashingMagazine have really been putting out the goods in their inspiration category

6. YouTheDesigner

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YouTheDesigner is a great blog that just keeps getting better. Gino has been putting out stellar content all around and built in a nice inspiration category to boot!

7. PSDTUTS Inspiration Category

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Hey it’s PSDTUTS! Sean Hodge’s awesome inspiration posts have wrapped up everything from mecha to icons.

8. Abduzeedo’s Inspiration Category

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Abduzeedo’s got a great set of posts covering HD photos, design and much more

9. Most Inspired

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A neat aggregator complete with a blog worth keeping up with

10. LogoLounge

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Some decent stuff at LogoLounge, though it’s not my favourite logo inspiration site (that of course being FaveUp!!)

11. Outlaw Design Blog Inspiration Category

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Outlaw’s got some beeeautiful inspiration images, particularly in his digital paintings post.

12. SpoonGraphics Inspiration Category

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Another blog featuring some occasional great inspiration posts.

13. DesignYouTrust

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Social Inspiration - this site is one to watch out for!

14. AllTop - Design

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Not so much visual inspiration as textual. Guy Kawasaki’s AllTop features a ton of great design blogs

15. TypeSites

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Like your inspiration with a bit of typographic style?

16. Fuel Your Creativity

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Another up and comer in the design blog scene with lots of great posts to choose from!

17. Just Creative Design

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It’s not *just* creative design, it’s also damn useful! Check out JCD’s list of inspiration sites

18. QBN

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You might remember QBN in its previous incarnation as NewsToday - it’s still just as good as ever!

19. FormFiftyFive

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A little more abstract and offbeat than some of my other picks, FFF runs inspirational images daily and they are worth seeing!

20. Muse

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Not only great aesthetic choices, but Muse also goes behind the work to profile the artists and designers behind a job.

21. AIGA’s Design Archives

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AIGA’s design archives are the kind of place you can get lost in, it is AIGA after all!

22. Fawnt

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Need a font to get your project started? Fawnt can give you a quick typographic shot in the arm!

23. CarbonMade Portfolios

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I love looking through other people’s portfolios, especially when the site is as fun and colourful as CarbonMade!

24. Coroflot’s Portfolios

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Coroflot is the grand-daddy of porftolio sites and it’s still rockin’

25. Behance’s Portfolios

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Behance has been taking portfolios to a new social networking dimension and getting a lot of press. Some great stuff in there.

26. Flickr Groups

Vandelay’s Best Flickr Groups for Designers


Flickr has become a great way to get design communities participating, Vandelay has rounded up a ton of them, but really you should just visit the PSDTUTS Flickr Group!

27. Vandelay Design

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Our own Steven Snell’s home turf where he publishes tons and tons of great content, including inspirational wrap ups

28. Fubiz

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Don’t speak French, don’t worry, neither do I! But Fubiz is still worth visiting, in particular their collection of 70 amazing business card designs

29. Inspiration Folder

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Not the greatest looking site, but quite functional. Inspiration Folder lets you collect and share inspirational designs

30. WeHeartIt

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This is one of my favourite new sites, share your images in a sort of social-delicious-inspiration-image-fest!

31. AisleOne

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Old school graphic inspiration focusing on grids, minimalism and modernism, nice!

32. CoolBoom

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Need some sweet architectural inspiration? Try CoolBoom!

33. VisualizeUs

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Similar to WeHeartIt, this is Delicious but for images. Really, really cool!

Leave a Comment
  1. You forgot a really good one. It is kinda new I think but check it out: http://yaymonday.com it’s just so simple. Another awesome site I always use is http://cpluv.com

  2. 33 New ways to break the front page :)

  3. ah…qbn used to be newstoday.com totally forgot about that site! thanks!

  4. Gravatar

    Charie Masters

    Great lists. I use a lot of those often. Another new site I really enjoy is DesignBump.com. But atleast you didn’t leave out Fuel Your Creativity or Vandaley.

  5. ah…qbn used to be newstoday.com totally forgot about that site! thanks!

  6. Inspiration posts are my favorite. Especially the ones that link to us! Thanks so much for the support, we appreciate it!!

  7. . . .27, 28, 19 (!?), 30. . .lol.

    A lot of these are already in my RSS feed and it looks like I have some more to add thanks to
    you guys.

    Thanks again for another great resource!

  8. Cool list! Thanks for mentioning! ;)

  9. Thanks for the link love!

  10. Interesting sites. I can see how they can inspire some.

    @Travis - exactly right, haha

  11. what about fffound! ?
    they usually have some really good images there =)

  12. Thanks for the links Collis! There are several here that are new to me. Looks like I’ll be online for a while.

  13. Great list, however seems google is reporting inspiredology.com as a known attack site.

  14. Looking for inspiration to create designs here are quite a few options to find it.

  15. Great list but you forgot ChangeTheThought.com and Notcot.org. I check those sites at least daily.

  16. Sorry, got to plug my site: http://www.dezinspiration.com

  17. Whoops thanks Jacen, i’ll get that fixed :-)

  18. great Colis. Thanks.
    But I am asking it once more : Please make your list links as “_blank” and spare us all some “right click” + “open link in new tab” !! ;-)

  19. Thanks Collis! I really appreciate the link love - I’m very flattered! This is a great list - there are more than 5 I haven’t heard of before, I know what I will be doing…

  20. Oook fixed the target=”_blank”s to work again, fixed that number and stopped the frontpage from breaking :-)

    All in all, much better!

  21. Gravatar

    tommygunz

  22. @Rene assign your mousewheel click to open new tab :D
    http://logopond.com

  23. Great inspiration… I’m grateful for all the leads.

  24. thanks for the list.

  25. This is delicious! Thanks!

  26. Maybe a good idea to remove Inspiredology, Google and McAfee both block the site stating it’s riddled with malware.

  27. Great places. Also deviantART is another good one, for all types of arts inspirations.

  28. Thanks Cal & TwItCh - I’ve replaced it with YouTheDesigner, that really should have been on the list if I wasn’t so forgetful! :-)

  29. It just gets keeping better and better. Just awesome collection. Platinum Collection I must say. 30+ ways to a better website design. humm….

  30. What a great list, a definate bookmark!

    Vandalay is a great resource!

    Thanks again..

  31. You missed one ;)

  32. Oh man, there are too many new sites, how does one get enough time to go through these. I would love to do a daily run through, but there are TOO many! Which are the best of the best?

  33. Wohooo! Thanks for sharing! :D

  34. Thanks for the Typesites link love. Keep up the great work. :)

  35. Hi Collis,

    Great article, and thanks for the shout out!
    We also have a killer job board if anyone is looking…

    Jeremy
    coroflot.com

  36. Collis im with on DesignFlavr i mucho love it! Great list and there are one or two i haven’t got round to checking out so cheers! Of course i think my baby - CSS Loaf is pretty good at providing inspiration as well: http://www.cssloaf.com (End of Plug)

  37. Awesome list, I bookmarked some of them! I really like PSDTuts & DesignFlavr.

  38. depthcore has a great archive of digital art, you can easily analyze how trends changed over years. its one of the milestones of web.

  39. Very nice list, great job. I’ll have to spend some time checking a few of those out. Don’t forget also http://www.cssdivine.com :)

  40. Great List!

    For all you eCommerce junkies I usually check out a few agency portfolios such as DemandWare (http://demandware.com/Clients/clients,default,pg.html), Varien (http://www.varien.com), or the eCommerce Gallery (http://ecommercegallery.com/).

  41. I have 33+ running pages on my screen. My eyes are painful now. I have to schedule inspirational site viewing for at least 30 min to 1 hr a day :) Thanks for sharing.

  42. Ben neden yokum bu listede ?

    why,WHY,wHy?
    There is not my sites in this list?

  43. more please… ;-)

  44. hmm nice…

  45. Thanks.

  46. You can take a look at this one also: http://www.onecss.com

  47. prenderò ispirazione…

  48. This is quality stuff. My head is buzzing with ideas. Thank you.
    Gotta have your RSS feed now…for the home reading.

    I think you might find a few kudos coming your way from my blog real soon.

  49. Good collection there .
    I think an article about the css galleries should be written . There are so many galleries out there that showcase such beautiful websites which cannot be put into one article alone .

  50. Fantastic collection, found a few extras in there I had never come across that can be added to my feed reader!

    PS, Many thanks for the inclusion!

  51. Thanks for sharing this.

  52. What about adding a “tell a friend” or “share this post” link to every post?

    I’d like to share this inspirational list with some colleagues, and I will, by copying the URL and emailing them. Would be nice to have a quick form to it.

    Congratz

  53. MERCI! MERCI!

    YOU’RE ROCKIN’ IT NOT STOPPIN’ IT!!!!

  54. Really awesome list and some sites that I was not even aware of.
    Thank you very much for listing Raster on here. We really appreciate it!

  55. This is a great collection, very useful, thanks!

  56. Note. “2. Rasterized” the site is called Raster. says so on the banner. and a nice post =]

  57. “Not the greatest looking site, but quite functional. Inspiration Folder lets you collect and share inspirational designs”

    Hey, I take offense to that! :-P Well, not really, I’m a programmer not a designer thus the need for Inspiration Folder and all the inspiration I can get. ;-)

  58. Yeah lets do some shameless self-promotion. Check out http://www.fudgegraphics.com for even more inspiration.

  59. Now I am officially overloaded with inspiration. Thank you.

  60. Collis what an awesome compilation of resources & inspiration. Thanks for bringing it all together in one place, a ton of very cool stuff.

  61. How can anyone into motion graphics forget http://motionographer.com !!
    Best place for all your daily eye candy. Check it out.
    Cheers.
    Rayman from London town

  62. Huge levels of inspiration here, thanks. I believe everyone deserves a Better Website Design

  63. Wow, thank you for sharing. I still have 24 sites to visit from this list.

  64. Wow, thanks!
    I’m just getting into web design, and this sure helps me a lot!

  65. Really great list

  66. Wow, so much fresh blood, Thanks for sharing!

  67. Great stuff. Every designer needs a little inspiration sometimes… bookmarked and stumbled!

  68. Thanks for a great list. just added a few of the links to my rss reader.

  69. Good list! thanks…

  70. Here is a link for an ecommerce css site design gallery.
    Cart Craze: http://cartcraze.com

  71. Gravatar

    Renardo C. Lewis

    what about cgtalk.com thats one of my fav

  72. What about DesignDump.com

    The Design Dump is your total Graphic Design Resource including; graphic design books, graphic design magazines, latest news, original articles, graphic design resource links, design conference updates, graphic design competition listings, and much more.

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