No creative can exist in a vacuum. We all need to keep in touch with the latest trends and check out the work our fellow professionals are producing.
It’s not about copying others, of course. Still, it is about understanding common points of reference and the broader culture we all swim in, not to mention getting a blast of inspiration and new ideas along the way. To help you find all that, quickly and easily, I’ve brought together the best blogs around on art, design and creativity.
1. Abduzeedo
Abduzeedo is a collective of individual writers sharing articles about architecture, design, photography and UX. Founded by Brazilian designer Fabio Sasso in 2006, it’s particularly strong on 3D work, which is something that doesn’t get much attention from most design blogs.
2. Design Week
Founded in 1986, Design Week was the UK’s leading design magazine until 2011, when it became online-only. It continues to bring you high quality, well-written news and inspiration across graphics, branding, interiors, digital, product, furniture and more.
3. Creative Boom
Creative Boom (of course) celebrates, inspires and supports the creative community and has an excellent section on graphic design to give you loads of inspiration. The magazine also features insightful interviews with some of the world’s leading designers – Paula Scher being a recent example.
4. Create by Adobe
Create is Adobe’s magazine by creatives, for creatives — available online and as a mobile app. Visit them for inspiration and tutorials on photography, illustration, graphic design, web design, motion graphics, audio/video, branding, and more.
5. Dropbox Design
Most of us have used the file-sharing service Dropbox at some point in our lives, but did you know it has a blog too? It’s a fine one at that, featuring an array of articles on the theme of UX, with topics including user research, project management, and design tooling.
6. Creative Review
Founded in 1980, Creative Review is the world’s leading monthly magazine for advertising, design and visual culture. And the same high-quality journalism that informs it carries through to its website, which features a range of news, reviews and features from the creative world.
7. The Dieline
For anyone working in packaging design, The Dieline has it all wrapped up. It’s basically the Bible of the sector: a place where the community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest industry trends, and check out design projects being created in the field.
8. 99U
99U is a blog from Adobe aimed to help anyone in a creative profession to develop their careers. It’s replete with quality articles on leadership, productivity and marketing, covering topics such as how to overcome your fear of failure, and how to develop good work habits.
9. Eye Magazine
Eye Magazine, the international review of graphic design, is a quarterly print magazine on graphic design and visual culture. It, and its associated blog, features a range of critical, informed writing about design and visual culture.
10. Underpinned
Underpinned is an online platform of tools and services for freelancers, and its associated blog has an array of articles about all aspects of going freelance. Topics range from tips on chasing payments to how to make your photography stand out.
11. Identity Designed
This clean and elegant blog by David Airey is a showcase of the best brand identities from around the world. It’s just one of the many successful design blogs that he runs: also see number 37 on our list.
12. Shillington Design Blog
Shillington is a network of colleges offering an innovative approach to design education based on short, intensive courses and practical, industry-focused learning. And it has its own blog, too, featuring a range of inspiring design work and insightful articles.
13. Under Consideration: Brand New
Under Consideration is a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives and content, while taking on a limited amount of client work. Its Brand New blog is well-known for chronicling, and providing opinions on, corporate and brand identity work. It’s edited and written by Armin Vit.
14. Art of the Menu
Another great blog from Under Consideration (see above), Art of the Menu catalogues the underrated creativity of menus from around the world. They welcome and encourage suggestions and submissions, and readers are free to comment too.
15. Print.pm
The brainchild of Parisian art director Martin Joubert, Print.pm provides a daily burst of inspiration for lovers of editorial print design, mainly based around the latest arty-looking books and magazines.
16. UX Collective
Medium-based blog UX Collective pulls together an array of insightful articles from designers working at the coalface of user experience. There’s some excellent advice on offer here, about everything from empathy mapping to the principles of icon design.
17. The Dsgn Blog
The Dsgn Blog is all about visual inspiration. Founded, designed and curated by Ena Baćanović, a designer based in Zagreb, Croatia, it features the work of designers and design studios from all over the world, putting the main focus on young designers and students.
18. Inspo Finds
Inspo Finds is both a website and limited-edition book that aims to promote and celebrate the latest design work, up and coming designers, and the design community.
19. BP&O
BP&O stands for Branding, Packaging and Opinion, and it delivers on all of these things, with a combination of inspiring imagery and in-depth analysis. It’s the brainchild of Richard Baird, a British freelance designer and writer who specialises in brand identities and packaging.
20. Design Clever
Design Clever is a collaboration started by Jonathan Ring and Bethany Baker, two aspiring graphic designers with a passion for everything design-related. This blog was created to showcase talented designers all over the world, and they encourage creatives everywhere to submit their work to it.
21. Grain Edit
Grain Edit is focused on classic design work from the 1950s to the 1970s, as well as contemporary designers who draw inspiration from that era. It features interviews, articles, designers’ libraries, rare design annuals, type specimens, Ephemera, posters and vintage kids books. Based in California, it’s run by Dave Cuzner, Ethan Davis and Grace Danico.
22. Fonts In Use Blog
Fonts In Use is a public archive of typography indexed by typeface, format, and industry. An independent project led by Sam Berlow, Stephen Coles, and Nick Sherman, it documents and examines graphic design intending to improve typographic literacy and appreciation.
23. Masterpicks
Looking for inspiration from real-world projects? Masterpicks has you covered. This image-led blog presents you with a new, hand-picked design project every day, across UX and UI design, illustration, animation, 3D art, graphic design, branding, industrial design and photography.
24. Frank Chimero
Veteran designer Frank Chimero shares his thoughts regularly on his much-visited blog, and they’re very much worth reading. Jumping between the internet, design, writing, music, film, self-development, and work culture, his posts are beautifully written and always relevant.
25. Creative Bloq
Creative Bloq features advice, interviews and reviews taken from four print magazines: Computer Arts (graphic design and branding), net (web design), 3D World (animation/VFX) and ImagineFX (Art). It also posts daily news from the creative industry, ranging from fun to serious.
26. Digital Arts
Similar to Creative Bloq (above), Digital Arts offers inspiration, advice and tutorials for digital creatives across branding and graphic design, illustration, UX and interactive design, animation, VR and VFX, as well as comprehensive coverage of the latest developments.
27. Wix Creative
Wix is a cloud-based platform for creating your own website, and its blog offers inspiration, tips and resources for creatives everywhere. It includes professional step-by-step guides to walk you through everything from colour theory to make a mood board.
28. Dribbble
Enabling creatives to share their work long before Instagram was even dreamt of, Dribbble is a design industry institution. Its related blog is packed with useful advice to boost your career, such as how to form good habits and how to get out of a bad design feedback loop.
29. Design Made In Japan
Japanese culture is having a huge global influence right now, and Design Made In Japan is the perfect place to stay updated with its design output. There’s a wealth of editorial, product and packaging design on show, and even a design jobs board for those wanting to work in Japan.
30. Mindsparkle
Mindsparkle magazine promotes the “most beautiful and inspiring projects” in the fields of graphic design, web design and video. With a clean and satisfying design of its own, it’ll become a daily inspiration, and you can rely on the founders to only share the very best.
31. Typeroom
Typeroom is a curated portfolio for typography fans, featuring inspiring stories about type and interviewing type designers from across the world. The articles here are first-class, and we love that you get the opportunity to choose the background colour of the page.
32. It’s Nice That
Beautifully designed, industry-led and one of the best resources for keeping abreast of art, illustration and graphic design everywhere, It’s Nice That continues to be one of our favourite online publications.
33. Designer News
Describing itself as “where the design community meets”, Designer News pulls in the latest interesting posts from around the web, from Behance and Medium to individual designers’ websites. The community then upvotes and downvotes them, and adds their own comments.
34. Typeroom
Typeroom calls itself “an online platform for the Typophile Generation”. Showcasing outstanding typographic works, featuring inspiring stories about the letterforms that matter and interviewing type designers from around the globe.
35. Httpster
Just want to browse delicious web design? Httpster is exactly what you need. It’s an inspiration resource showcasing “totally rocking websites” made by designers everywhere. As with all trends, you don’t need to copy them, but it’s useful to know what they are.
36. Site Inspire
siteInspire is another showcase of the latest and greatest web designs. Updated frequently, it’s a great place to keep in touch with the most recent trends in interactive design, and get ideas and inspiration for your own creations.
37. Logo Design Love
Another beautifully designed blog by David Airey, this time focusing on logo designs from around the world. It’s a nicely curated showcase for the latest logos, as well as featuring reviews and commentary around related work, such as logo design books.
38. The Inspiration Grid
The Inspiration Grid is an online magazine celebrating creative talent from around the world, providing a daily fix of art, illustration, typography, photography and…of course, graphic design. It has a clean, appealing design, and everything is easy to find. One of our favourites.
39. Visuelle
David Bennett curates inspiring projects from graphic designers worldwide. There’s no commentary (the images link through to the original site), but it’s compelling visual eye-candy throughout. Add this to your bookmarks for reliable content daily.
40. One Extra Pixel
Getting into web design? This excellent blog strives to share the best web resources for those of you passionate about pixels. It looks at trends, the best fonts, recommended templates for WordPress, and much more.
41. AIGA: Eye on Design
The AIGA, otherwise known as The Professional Association for Design, has a beautiful blog called Eye on Design which is bursting with design inspiration. With contributors from around the world, you’ll never be bored with its varied content.
42. Visual Journal
Curated by Alessandro Scarpellini, a designer and art director from Italy, Visual Journal brings together the best branding and graphic design projects from all over the world. There’s very little in the way text here, but lots and lots of beautiful images to drool over.
43. Webflow Blog
Webflow is a product used to create websites visually without coding. Whether or not you’re using Webflow yourself, its blog is packed with excellent articles on broader subjects around web design and UX and is well worth a visit.
44. Ambalaj
Founded by Swedish designer Kristina de Verdier in 2008, Ambalaj is predominantly a packaging design blog, but it also tends to share the latest design innovations.
45. 8Faces
The official blog of 8 Faces magazine, this blog features inspirational typography, beautiful lettering, reviews, interviews with leading designers and much more. Curated by Jamie Clarke and Elliot Jay Stocks.
46. Swissmiss
Swissmiss is the work of Tina Roth Eisenberg, a Swiss designer in New York who also founded and today runs Tattly, CreativeMornings and TeuxDeux. It’s packed with visual inspiration, some of which can be quite offbeat, but never dull.
47. Wrap magazine
Primarily a print magazine, Wrap is published bi-annually and champions contemporary illustration. It also happens to have an excellent blog on Tumblr, where it shares colourful and quirky work from illustrators and graphic designers everywhere.
48. Design Taxi
With its own section dedicated to graphic design, Design Taxi is a good shout to keep abreast of industry news, trends and updates. Its posts don’t go into a lot of depth but cover a wide breadth of topics. So it’s great for getting an overview of what’s going on in general.
49. SideBar
Want to keep track of everything going on in web design right now, but don’t have time to subscribe to a thousand different blogs? SideBar saves you the bother by curating the best posts daily and delivering you five relevant links a day, which is much more manageable.
50. This is Paper
This is Paper is a beautiful blog, and print magazine focused on creativity, with a section devoted to print design. There’s also a very popular mixtapes section where you can enjoy listening to some beats while working.