Best Graphic Design Inspiration Sites
If you've been working as a graphic designer for a while, you'll likely have realized that getting inspired is arguably one of the most important steps in the process of graphic design. Graphic design inspiration, like all inspiration, comes in many forms. Most of the inspiration you get comes from the outside world. Just by walking around and looking around, you take in a lot of inspiration even if you aren’t aware of it. Besides that though, as a designer, it can often feel like you are still lacking inspiration and are in need of more of an inspiration boost when working on a design. This is more in the form of direct inspiration, meaning you are actively trying to pursue it, most often in the form of similar work you're looking to create.
Before the existence of the internet, designers would get their inspiration from books and printed work, now it’s more common to get it from various websites and platforms. There are thousands of useful websites you can use to get inspiration and here we’ll discuss some of the best and most popular.
FakeClients.com
If you are looking for inspiration to build up a portfolio or have some free time to practice graphic design, be sure to check out FakeClients.com. It is a website with a generator that generates ‘fake client’ prompts. It will give you a company name and subject so you have something to work on. It is a great way to get some practice before starting to work on a real client. The feedback section on FakeClients also has some great work from the community that uses the site. You can use this too, to get some inspiration for your next project and maybe even give some feedback to help out others.
Dribbble
Dribbble is probably the most popular website for graphic design inspiration and most graphic designers probably already know about it. It features some amazing work from great graphic designers, illustrators, and interface designers. Because the website is invite-only, you can always expect good work on the homepage, you don’t have to go looking for it. This means it’s probably the easiest way to get some quick inspiration but the work on the Dribbble homepage can also begin to feel repetitive after a while, which is why it is always a good idea to also check out some other websites. That’s why it’s also the most used way of getting inspiration online.
Pinterest is another very popular medium for getting inspiration. It’s not only made for graphic design but for pretty much anything. This makes it a bit harder to look for graphic design specifically. However, Pinterest’s features make it very easy to save and collect all your inspiration in a single place. Pinterest’s boards and the ability to pin various images are arguably one of the best ways of collecting and keeping track of inspiring works you'd like to save. Your feed will also change based on your activity. This means your inspiration gets better and more personalized over time.
Behance
Behance is a website owned by Adobe, and it works much like Dribbble. Just like Dribbble, it’s a site made for showcasing creative work. Unlike Dribbble, Behance is open to everyone. This doesn’t mean that the work found on Behance is any worse than Dribbble. Behance is great at recommending amazing work by great artists. It also seems to have a more diverse collection of work that is showcased.
UnderConsideration
UnderConsideration.com is a beautiful website where you can find lots of news and nice work being showcased. They also have several blogs with great inspiration for graphic design work. UnderConsideration.com/brandnew, for example, has lots of interesting blog posts on popular designs being updated with detailed explanations and reviews. UnderConsideration.com/artofthemenu is another blog of theirs on which they showcase beautiful-looking menu designs.
thedsgnblog
thedsgnblog is another blog on graphic design, curated and founded by Croatian graphic designer Ena Baćanović. It’s a quite popular blog showcasing amazing work. They post quite often and it is worth checking out regularly if you are in need of some graphic design inspiration.
