50 Amazing Design Blogs Every Creative Needs to Bookmark
Laura Busche
March 31, 2021 · 8 min read
Successful creatives have one thing in common: they’re always looking at fresh material to inspire their work. As much as you’d like to sit down and pull from an unlimited well of design ideas, there is no such thing as inspiration in isolation. Radically innovative work demands equally inventive sources. Don’t feel guilty for keeping your eyes and ears open to what other creatives are doing, especially if it’s the work they’re most proud of: these pieces have the potential to take your own work to places where it’s never been before!
A word of caution: don’t let this inspiration hunting derail you from actual creation. The happiest creatives, as we brought up in this article, don’t let comparison get a point where it negatively affects their output.
Today, I’ll share 50 of the most inspiring and influential blogs curated by successful creatives. In doing so, we’ll be looking at 10 categories:
The craft of making fonts, new font reviews, and type history are some of the most popular topics addressed in this journal made possible by type foundry Hoelfer & Co.
With Illustration Friday you never run out of inspiration, as they feature new illustrated pieces every single week. Unlike other blogs, they don’t just feature digital illustration work. Various mixed media pieces are also featured.
This is where you go when you need to learn about emerging trends or news related to the branding space.
Want more? We shared a longer list of branding blogs to follow here.
A List Apart brands itself as a site “for people who design websites” — if you consider yourself part of this group, go ahead and subscribe to their thought-provoking updates.
Crayon is a massive search engine that collects web design screenshots (among other types of designs) over time. Their blog highlights the very best transformations they’ve found.
Graphic Exchange belongs to designer Fabien Barral, also known as Mr. Cup. Bookmark it to get a taste for his curated examples of print and letterpress designs.
Perhaps no other company has elevated stationery printing services like Moo has. Their blog is a colorful showcase of the best work they’ve helped clients bring to life.
Based in Sweden, this blog showcases “carefully selected cases from all over the world; material innovation, structural packaging, graphic design as well as beautiful brand stories.”
Canva not only provides a no-brainer tool to create blog graphics, but their blog occasionally features great examples of what to do vs. what not to do.
With one of the most engaging web designs on this list, Eye on Design by AIGA has taken over creatives’ feeds all over the world. In no time, they’ve managed to curate such great stories and pieces that it is nearly impossible to ignore the site. Sign up for their newsletter if you’ve got the chance (and the inbox space!).
Literally offering “a little bit of everything”, CreativeBloq belongs to a larger media group called Future plc. You might have heard of some of their other products: Computer Arts Magazine and .net.
This list wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t mention yours truly. This blog’s main goal is to inspire you to pursue new creative goals, create your best work confidently, and truly make a living doing what you love.
Can I be jealous of The Jealous Curator? Because she surely seems to be having a blast. Her job consists of finding amazing creative work to share with you, and she’s consistently killing it.
FStoppers is a community for photography lovers who want to up their game. Some of the topics discussed here are news, commercial photography, retouching, and lighting.
I hereby confess my growing obsession with Chase Jarvis. Not only has he elevated photography to a profitable, scalable business, but he’s also paved the way for others to do it through CreativeLive. As if we needed more, he recently launched a 30-day video series where he’s interviewed inspiring leaders from all kinds of creative fields. Here’s Stefan Sagmeister:
Sean McCabe has quickly become an authority in understanding, maintaining, and expanding the business of design. Check out his free content and podcast.
If I told you that there’s a widely successful Irish designer who has managed to build a career full of clients and recognition, would you want to hear his advice? Well, here you go.
You may know Crew as the team behind Unsplash. This is their blog, and also their attempt at showing you what happens behind the scenes of such a creative community.
This site is also a hugely popular digital and print magazine. Their Design Business section touches on interesting topics like productivity, time management, and client acquisition.
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Brand strategist. Creating design tools to empower creative entrepreneurs. Author of the Lean Branding book. MA in Design Management from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
I am a little lazy for blogs but I must say that I never miss CM blog, is just amazing! I would love if there's a feature where we can "Like" posts and save them in our account for later reading. 5 years ago
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Definitely bookmarked for future reading! Check this website (https://a2designlab.com/) with lots of good design works. 1 year ago
Crayon is a massive search engine that collects web design screenshots (among other types of designs) over time. Their blog highlights the very best transformations they’ve found.
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