Forest Giant

Finding and drawing from sources of inspiration is an integral part of every designer’s creative process. We’ve all spent hours and hours at the start of a project, or when we’re experiencing a block, combing through google image search, design blogs, and the portfolio sites of our favorite designers. Studying the technique and style our peers and heros applied to solve design problems is priceless when struggling with our own assignments.

I visit a couple blogs on a daily basis to keep the visual part of my brain firing on all cylinders. One of my favorites is The Fox is Black, which pumps out quality posts highlight really great, current art, illustration, and design, as well as architecture, movies, gaming, and more. The World’s Best Ever is always a good place to get my pop culture, art, comedy, and early 90’s rap video fix. I spend a lot of time looking at Change The Thought, Friends of Type, Faesthetic, and Beast Pieces. I also have a bookcase full of old PRINT and HOW magazines that are good to flip through. And sometimes I just need to get away from it all and I spend hours on the Guardian Football page clearing my brain and filling it with football.

I took a quick poll of the designers I work with to find out where they turn to when the need to get their creative juices flowing.

Rich told me that on a day-to-day/week-to-week basis he turns to Boooooooom, Grassroots Modern, Grain Edit, and Ffffound. He also uses Tumblr for daily inspiration. His favorites include Ben Sears, Angryblue, Typeverything, Supersonic Electronic, Ryan Scapegoat, Relic, This Isn’t Happiness, Jon Contino, and Stamp Designs.

Under Consideration is a hub of inspiration for Emily, with Quipsologies and FPO being particular favorites. She also cited Ffffound, FWA, Design Sponge, StyleBoost, and Yulia Brodskaya as frequent stops on her quest to be inspired.

Jon has a variety of sites he hits up on a daily basis as a source of inspirado. Like Cool is his source for the latest gadgets, tech, and design. Styleboost provides a steady flow of web inspiration. Motionographer shows off the cream of the crop in motion design. He also feeds his eyes looking at The Sub Studio Blog, Selectism, and Fast Company.

Where do you turn to for inspiration?