The most useful websites for Professional Graphic Designers?

Peter Small

New Member
Which websites would you consider to be the most useful to Graphic designers? Especially to professional designers?

I'm trying to get a list of the top 80 - which I'll publish on the forum as soon as it is completed
 
Not obviously Boss Hog, but I shall be trying to make to make it one of the best (especially if I can get a few experienced graphic designers to help me curate it).

But I'll let you be the judge of that when I've completed the list
 
Sorry Peter.

It tends to go like this when we haven't got it out of our system for a while. ;)

I think it'd be a great resource and I for one have found the sites I usually go on (inspirational) are getting a little dry.
I'd be happy to share the ones I find useful.
What kind of sites are you thinking as there are SO many subjects?
 
Thanks for your comments Scotty. As you so rightly say "There are so many subjects".
This is why it is so hard to create a list of resources and why you need so many of them in a list.
It is also why I could do with some help from some fellow curators - not only to add to the list but to prune the list so that the list (in its entirety) become a valuable and inspiring asset.
As you indicate, lists tend to become "dry' so what I shall be attempting to do is to create a list that can be constantly updated and refreshed by the curators.
When I've created the initial list I'll post the URL here and call for members of the forum to join me as curators.
If anyone would care to view the list and provide comments before I post it on line, please let me know.
 
The only one I used to go on regularly is Computer Arts magazine site, which was taken over by Creative Bloq.

Creative Review and Design Week would be obvious ones, but these are all magazines, does that count?
 
I made a post a while ago asking if anyone else had found that inspirational sites were becoming a bit dry or if the design world was just a bit stale at the moment.

I'll start to put together a list of the sites I find useful but I'll kick off. Sorry I've not hyperlinked them.

Google - Goes without saying.
Pinterest - Great for inspiration and creating and sharing mood boards.
Dropbox and other file sharing sites like DropSend for passing over big files.
Free font sites like DaFont.

Inspiration Sites

InspirationHut
FromUpNorth
Ultralinks
CreativeBloq
InspiredMagazine
DesignYouTrust
InspirationFeed
SerialThriller
KoiKoiKoi
Abduzeedo
LogoPond and other logo sites.

Just off the top of my head.
 
Thanks Scotty and Wardy for your contributions. They are a help and yes, magazines are a valid resource and will be listed in a separate category
 
I don't really use sites for inspiration, except for perhaps dribbble.com (also useful for finding illustrators and artists). I can list some useful resources I refer to when I'm building websites if that's the sort of thing you're after?
 
Hi, :)

I tend to have a general brows for inspirations, including pinterest, bootstrap, wordpress and other forums (like this one for example ;) ).
but here is a list of my regulars :)

Typewolf - www.typewolf.com/
Smashing - www.smashingmagazine.com/
Contrast Checker - contrastchecker.com/
Awwwards - www.awwwards.com/
font transformer - transfonter.org/
CSS decompression - unminify.com/

I hope this helps :)
 
Here's the problem when you are trying to create "useful sites" lists: the knowledge starts to turn into a fractal.
You quickly realise that you need to divide the sites up into categories. Then these categories need categories themselves and sometimes even the categories of categories start to need categories.
Unless you are some kind of autistic genius, you cannot hope to be an expert in all the many various categories that emerge - even savvy enough to know they even exist. This is why these lists need several curators to combine their knowledge.Which is why I need help here.

The other problem is trying to stop the information from getting too far reaching. The lists or lists have to be such as to be interesting, informative illuminating and inspirational. This means limiting selections to only the best and the most effective - not an easy job for the curators.

What I'll do is make a start on this and then perhaps some of you can join in to comment or take over some of the categories.

I should have something together by the end of this week
 
Thing is with design, there are many divisions.
Graphic Design, Illustration, Print, Web, Typography, Branding, Packaging, Apparel .... and the list goes on.
Also there is a lot of cross over as well.

To create a definitive guide/list is a lot bigger job than it first seems.
I don't think it's the compiling of resources, it's the organisation of them.
 
Yes. I have realised this Scotty, but as my interest is in Graphical Design for the Web I have been keeping mainly to this area. However, this still has multiple divisions.
 
I am not sure how many people out there really follow designing websites but I get really picky when any (not a great fan of using graphic designing websites). Following are the few websites that I sometimes follow when working on any website;
1. Kuler – every time when I am stuck between colors I refer to this
2. The Dieline – the site offers some really cool inspiring packaging designs.
3. Ad Goodness – it has got some highly creative concepts of personalized ads. One thing I like about them is the pictures available here are big enough to view clearly as compare to some websites that showcases small images.
4. Grain edit – if I am looking for something vintage I always visit Grain edit as the site is good enough for any looking for old-fashion aesthetics.
5. Behance – this is like all-in-one place thing for me since it has got complete .
 
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Following are some of the famous graphics designing websites that i check time to time to know about the designing trends:
  1. Smashing Magzine
  2. Creative Bloq
  3. Codesdrop
  4. Designmodo
  5. Design Shack
 
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