My Top 6 Resources I Use on the Daily
It’s so important in creative fields to look out into the world and breathe in the incredible work of others. There is so much creative brilliance available to us these days, and it’s so beneficial to look at the best that is out there. It inspires us to be better, think bigger and deliver more. It’s also important to realise we don’t have to do every. single. damn. thing. from scratch. There are incredible resources out there that are huge time savers. Usually if you can think of a font or a brush tool, someone has already made it!
There are heaps of ways to find inspiration and resources! From companies releasing design elements, people producing incredible podcasts and even social media and sharing platforms, design innovation is pouring out of everywhere!
Here are my top 6 favourite resources and places to get a top of inspo for when I need that little push to take my work to the next level:
Design Cuts
https://www.designcuts.com
I have followed the team at Design cuts forever and always love the amazing packs that they come out with. From fonts to vectors, patterns, textures, everything they come out with is curated and done so well. Having access to this incredible resource speeds up my design process, sometimes by hours, which saves my clients money, and occasionally my sanity, as I don’t get caught up spending hours trying to paint the perfect watercolour background because someone already made it!
Creative Market
https://creativemarket.com
Besides the HUGE range resources, such as backgrounds, fonts, photos and templates, Creative Market also has some great add on tools (over 9800 of them) for programs like photoshop and illustrator, and heaps of great 3D bits and bobs. It’s all really reasonably priced, and easy to navigate.
Graphic Burger
https://graphicburger.com
This place is top shelf for product mock-up files. If you need to try out designs on a box, a shirt, mug, computer, pretty much anything, this is a great resource. And best of all, a huge amount of their files are free! They aren’t as extensive as Creative Market or Design Cuts, but they definitely have some really quality goods in there.
https://www.pinterest.com
If you have any interest in the visual aesthetics of ANYTHING in your life, and you haven’t gotten onto pinterest yet, then for the love of spicy ramen soup DO IT.
For gathering visual ideas and inspiration for projects, Pinterest is the single best tool for creating a representation of what is going on in your head.
It’s also the BEST for organising your clients. Instead of them giving you just a written brief that isn’t super solid, they can simply and easily bring together a bunch of things that they like, and clearly show you what they want.
The Honest Designers Podcast
https://www.designcuts.com/honest-designers
These four champions delve into what it’s REALLY like to be a designer. They don’t shy away from any of what this profession entails , and give real, practical and lived examples of how to move through challenges, both in design and business. It’s incredibly inspiring to see how these four tackle the design world, and after each episode I feel charged and ready to power through my week. It’s almost like having a mentor on my phone.
So what resources do you use on the daily? Let me know!