Did you know that a great graphic design blog post can help your business grow? One that provides professional advice and information about preferences and interests of your customers? If you’re a small business owner, blogger or web designer, then these three graphic design blog for beginners will be perfect for helping you expand your knowledge and ultimately make more money.
There are many sources of graphic design inspiration. Many professionals use graphic design blogs to stay up-to-date on new tips and techniques for their design, or just to gain some fresh ideas for their next project. Below are some top graphic design blog that every designer should keep an eye on.
Adobe Creative Magazine
Why it rocks: Also available as an app, Adobe Creative Magazine is a go-to for graphic designers who need inspiration, tutorials, and information regarding the latest trends. Hone your skills by getting involved in popular design challenges or get helpful tips for working in Photoshop. Regardless of if you’re looking for a bold new font or wondering about the history of emojis, Adobe Creative Magazine is your ultimate resource.
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 doesn’t get much attention from most design blogs.
Creative Bloq
First on the list is Creative Bloq, a graphic design blog that covers all areas of graphic design, from 3D art and illustration to motion and animation.
If you’re looking for creative and artistic inspiration, they also have a decent collection of different art works readily available for your perusal. What we like about this blog is the fact that it also includes many free materials and resources to help you build on and hone your design skills on a daily basis.
The downside? Apart from being a particularly useful aid to UI designers, it’s not the most aesthetically appealing UIs at first glance. However, we guarantee the content is well worth a browse.
Smashing Magazine
Smashing Magazine features articles that generally focus on design usability, SEO, UX and other functional aspects of design. Insightful articles range from small tips, like why designers should never use “Click Here” in their links to deeper dives, like principles of technical SEO and how to think about mobile design in a better way.
Smashing Magazine also offers job boards and events to help designers connect with employers and build networks.
Canva Design School
Why it rocks: You may have heard of Canva’s Design School for its free online design tutorials, however, they also recently created a blog to serve and connect the creative community. From guides to designing book covers to clever 404 page designs, you’ll find a wealth of inspiration. Learn from established graphic designers or connect with up-and-coming artists all in one place!
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.
Made by Folk
Made by Folk is a graphic design blog that was put together by a bunch of artists, illustrators and programmers who want a space to share their favorite artwork. It’s the type of graphic design blog that any budding or experienced designer should have in their bookmarks.
Made by Folk features many design categories such as “Graphic”, “Typographic”, “Screen prints” and more. It’s a great way to keep up with design trends throughout the world and to get inspiration for UI design.
The only downside for those who prefer a bit of in-depth reading is that there’s not much of it to be found on this graphic design blog. They prefer to let their graphic design prints do most of the talking.
The Inspiration Grid
Its name says it all really. The Inspiration Grid is a grid of inspiring images and design projects ranging all over the place in aesthetic and even industry. Click on an image you like, and it opens the rest of the series that specific designer made. If you are into mood boards or seeing lots of different styles showcased in one place, you’ll love this.
AIGA Eye on Design
Why it rocks: AGIA Eye on Design not only features the latest creative work of emerging artists and reports on recent design trends, but it even runs a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to advocate for artists! Created AGIA, by the professional association for design, Eye on Design provides its readers with a myriad of categories and series to quench your thirst for graphic design knowledge.
Mirador
Mirador is the image-based blog curated by Say What Studio, a graphic design duo based in Paris, France. It draws together many inspirational works out there and pulls them together in a beautifully designed, Tumblr-style feed of visual inspiration.
Identity Designed
Identity Designed is all about brand identities. Way beyond featuring fantastic work, each showcase examines the design branding choices along with insights from the designers on what inspired or guided those decisions. Identity Design also does an awesome job of including brands from all over the world. Identity Designed published a book in 2019 featuring work from top international studios including workflow aspects from pricing and invoicing to generating strong ideas.
High on Design
Why it rocks: The creators of Wix have recently branched out and created a blog dedicated to design. You’ll want to take advantage of free tutorials, read interviews with innovative artists, and get book recommendations. If you’re building a personal brand, or seeking advice for showing your work to critics, High on Design has the material you need to become a successful graphic designer.
Telepathy
Telepathy has spent nearly 20 years helping startups and brands craft meaningful experiences for their customers. It shares the lessons it’s learned on its UX-focused blog, with intriguing articles such as ‘How to handle inspiration overload’ and ‘Using the Internet of Things to extend your brand essence’.
Envato Tuts +
If you’re looking for practical interactive content to help sharpen your graphic design skills, Envato Tuts + is the right place to come to.
Envato has a great selection of Adobe Photoshop, Sketch, Django and other graphic design-related tutorials, that are practically short courses of which the longest doesn’t last more than a few hours.
There’s also an astonishing number of educational ebooks available for you to read on the go, if you’re searching for more in-depth reading about graphic design. Additionally, their community section features a nice array of informal, easy-to-read posts on graphic design.
Noupe
Aimed at web designers and designers generally, Noupe has a refreshing vibe that honors the creative, alternative side of design while still focusing on its marketing and corporate utility. If you want to walk the line between designing for a company that expects certain results, while also saying something unique with your work—this blog could be a great source of inspiration.
Conclusion:
Choosing the right graphic designer for your small business is tricky. Making them listen to you is even more difficult. Thanks to the internet, it’s now possible to find graphic design inspiration at home – and online reference material on just about anything under the sun. If you can’t find what you want, try creating a new category and leave it open for other designers to join in.