No matter what you’re looking for, whether you’re a curious design enthusiast, a social media manager who’s crushing it on Canva, or a professional designer staying on top of the newest design trends, you’ll always benefit from having a reliable source of inspiration.
Luckily, the internet is vast. Unfortunately, you’ll never have time to get through it all.
That’s why we have selected our top 10 “go-to” design blogs when you search for a dose of the good old inspiration. Let’s get straight into it.
1. Brush Up by Creative Market
From the Groovy 70s to 1920 Art Deco, visit Creative Market’s blog, Brush Up, to learn the latest trends in graphic design, brush up your skills with comprehensive tutorials, or even explore new techniques.
A marketplace at its core, with over 3 Million unique fonts and graphics, Creative Market is one of the best places on the internet for design ideas (and shopping inspiration).
2. Dribbble’s Resource Hub
Not to be confused with Dribbble’s community blog (which you’re reading now), did you know Dribbble has a dedicated hub filled with free resources for designers? Dribbble’s Resource Hub holds a vast collection of resources and guides to help creative professionals like you learn, grow, and succeed.
📌 Explore Free Design Resources
Whether you want to learn how to build the perfect portfolio, start your freelance business, or learn the basics of design, we’ve got something for you:
- 💼 Build Your Design Portfolio
- 💰 Grow Your Freelance Business
- ✏️ Learn New Design Skills
- 🎨 Refine Your Creative Process
- 🤝 Hire a Designer
3. Creative Boom
Creative Boom is one of the world’s largest art and design platforms, delivering creative industry news, inspiration, insight, and advice to seven million creative professionals.
Graphic designers everywhere should follow Creative Boom for relevant industry news, exciting work from design peers, recommendations tools, resources, and books, and of course, tips and inspiration to help with your next project.
4. AIGA Eye on Design
You probably know AIGA as the professional association for design, but did you know they also produce an editorial platform for designers? Eye on Design is an editorial platform that features stories on what it means to be a designer today.
But wait! There’s more. Eye on Design also provides community events and city guides and a Design + category that features design applications ranging from health care to gender and politics.
The platform’s goal is to build a more engaged community, so you know there will always be fresh, cutting-edge content.
5. Stark
Stark is the place for designers looking for inspiration for accessible design. The Stark blog provides stories, resources, and material that is helpful to anyone interested in learning about accessibility in design. The write-ups and case studies can help designers make a difference in many lives by helping to create accessible products.
Stark is a suite of accessibility tools for designers, including checklists, formal courses, tools, and now a beta of their flagship Mac app.
6. Knapsack
Are you looking for design system inspiration this year? Visit the Knapsack blog. Stay on top of the latest news and updates from the design systems community, with Knapsack’s site covering best practices, events, and more.
You don’t need to be a Knapsack user to read their enlightening (and entertaining) articles on topics like “The future of design systems.” and “Six insights into design tokens.”
7. The Pudding
Are you a data visualization nerd? We are too. So make sure you visit The Pudding to see some fun visualizations. They explain issues in current culture by using visual essays. The articles themselves are fascinating as well.
They even have a brand studio (Polygraph) specializing in data-driven editorial with primary research and visualization.
8. Sidebar.io
Sidebar is an absolutely fantastic resource for designers. They focus on sharing the five best design links every weekday while producing a daily newsletter unlike any you’ve seen before!
Sidebar’s experts sift through a ton of content if you’re looking for design inspiration, so you don’t have to. You can even filter by category if you’re looking for something specific like Dark Patterns, Packaging, or even the latest trends like Claymorphism (hello, NFTs) and Corporate Memphis.
9. Shaping Design
Shaping Design is a blog put together by the team at Editor X, an advanced creation platform for designers and web professionals. While the platform combines cutting-edge responsive design with a smooth drag and drop, the blog follows suit at the intersection of design and tech.
You’ll find daily inspiration from web design to UX and more. They also highlight a wide range of design hot topics from creative 404 pages, single-page sites, and the resurgence of QR codes.
10. Apple & Banana
And we can’t forget our favorite blog for UX researchers, Apple & Banana. This sweet and helpful resource focuses on making your UX research fruitful.
Categorizing their articles into three categories, Application, Perspectives, and Collaboration, the site is easy to navigate (of course) and delightful to peruse. Subscribe to their newsletter to stay up-to-date and dive deeper into their research with their upcoming handbook, full of actionable advice.
Get inspired by incredible design content
The ten design blogs listed above offer a wealth of information, tips, and advice for creatives in the design industry. Follow each one to receive notifications when they release new posts, case studies, tutorials, and more. For even more inspiration, check out our list of top designers to follow on TikTok. ■
About the Author: Olivia Hoskin is a freelance writer with a background in tech and marketing. A true design fan at heart, you’ll find her writing about the latest industry trends, technologies, and the inspiring endeavors of fellow creators. She’s a champion of remote work, a lover of responsible technology, and a fitness geek and enjoyer of the outdoors in her spare time. Find her at oliviahoskin.com.
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