Sites for finding references and inspiration for designers
For people in creative professions, finding inspiration is an integral part of their work. Yes, many modern photographers and bloggers, who work with visuals, search for it on Pinterest and Instagram, browsing images related to their projects. Where can designers find inspiration? We’ve created a selection of 15 cool web resources that designers can use to search cool references and enrichment of your design portfolio. These sites will give you unlimited opportunities for creativity, because will help to gather ideas for new creative solutions, stay abreast of trends and develop professional skills.
Behance
Let’s start with the well-known “behance” (that’s what designers called Behance among themselves). It is a useful online platform and social network for creative individuals. Here, designers and creatives present their works and projects to receive feedback and constructive criticism. And, of course, all community members can view other people’s works, looking for inspiration in them.
Searching for references on the site is very convenient, because there are filters (time frame, popularity, location, color palette), which can be customized according to your needs. Here, every designer will find almost everything he may need in the creative process.
address: https://www.behance.net/
Uijar
This is an amazing collection of modern designs where people of creative professions will get a source of inspiration by browsing stylish and original web pages, cool UI/UX solutions, exciting illustrations, icons, fonts and dynamic animations. All are represented on the site, the designs are practically implemented projects with links to real web resources.
Uijar has a simple interface organized by categories and collections, which makes finding inspiration fast, convenient and efficient. This resource will be a real find for professionals looking for simple and visually pleasing product interaction solutions for sites and applications, and for those who seek it.
address: https://uijar.com/
Dribbble
This is a place where professionals can show their work and share ideas in the form of miniature sketches or animations.
Here, designers will find art in all its manifestations: from logos and illustrations to web design and user interfaces. The website presents the projects of the most talented and creative designers from around the world. Any work can be saved yourself in the gallery to refer to them at the right moment for new ideas. Also, as on other similar resources, here is an opportunity to communicate with colleagues, ask questions and receive feedback.
address: https://dribbble.com/
It’s an endless source of inspiration from thousands of talented designers and artists. This online service and social network enables users to create and share their ideas in the form of visual bookmarks (“pins”). You’re always on Pinterest you will be aware of the latest trends in the world of design.
The site has many categories, including design, fashion, art, interior, graphics, ideas for renovation and more. The service offers personalized recommendations and offers of perfectly relevant content based on your preferences and interests. Everyone Anyone can subscribe to interesting user profiles and follow their updates.
address: https://ru.pinterest.com/
Awwwards
This resource is a real Louvre in the world of examples of design works. This online gallery is dedicated to the best and the most interesting web designs. Here you can find many inspiring projects, as well as get recognition for your work as outstanding world web designers.
The visual and functional characteristics of the award-winning sites are presented in an understandable and interesting format. The site offers sections with the latest trends, insights and interviews from influential designers, as well as useful articles about the world of web design.
address: https://www.awwwards.com/
Best Website Gallery
This is a carefully curated gallery of premium web design inspiration. More than 2,000 websites are represented here, so the platform uses a tagging system to quickly find sites by style, features, functionality and other parameters.
This is a carefully curated gallery of premium web design inspiration. More than 2,000 websites are represented here, so the platform uses a tagging system to quickly find sites by style, features, functionality and other parameters.
address: https://bestwebsite.gallery
Cssdsgn
This is a huge collection of creative and unusual websites, conveniently organized by year and alphabetically. Despite the fact that the catalog has stopped updating since 2019, designers will find here a variety of styles, trends and approaches in web design, and also detailed information about each project.
The web resource is conveniently organized by category, so it is quite easy to find exactly what you are interested in. Each category contains many projects reflecting different trends in design.
address: https://www.cssdsgn.com
Typewolf
This is a large online resource that specializes in typography and related visual solutions. Here are the designers will find a huge collection of sites of various topics with high-quality design and branded fonts.
You can search for web resources by category (for example, fashion, travel, technology) or by entering keywords in the search bar. The site filters the results to offer the most relevant and interesting options. Each week, Typewolf presents a personal a selection of the most creative designs. It provides fresh inspiration and pushes users to creative experiments.
address: https://www.typewolf.com/
FontsIn Use
This resource is a rather interesting database of images with different fonts applied to different surfaces and objects. On in the pictures, you can see how this or that font looks, for example, on a T-shirt or on a package. It allows designers to see the font in real conditions and understand how it can complement a specific concept or style. You just enter the name font into the search field, and the system will provide you with the images you need. It’s cool that there is a Cyrillic font here.
This resource is a very useful assistant for designers, because it helps to easily and quickly find new and interesting fonts, which are suitable for specific tasks and projects. FontsIn Use offers a convenient search system: you can search by keyword by words, categories or by font name. Each font featured on FontsIn Use is accompanied by a story and information about its creators, features and historical context. This helps designers to better understand and appreciate the font as well use it taking into account the appropriate aesthetics.
address: https://fontsinuse.com/
Siiimple
The perfect inspiration for professionals who want to learn how to design in the style of minimalism. Selection of interesting modern examples of web design is constantly updated and offers new references for connoisseurs of simplicity and brevity.
address: https://siiimple.com/
Siteinspire
For more than a decade and a half, this catalog of references for designers has been selecting the most interesting modern projects for their own every day libraries and gives them free access to them. All references are divided into categories based on style and color palettes and other options to help designers find inspiration for their own projects.
address: https://www.siteinspire.com/
Httpster*
Another great source of inspiration for today’s web designers, featuring the most innovative, bold and the most original websites from around the world. References are distinguished by unusual visual and technical performance. Httpster* offers a simple search system that allows you to search for websites by different categories, styles and topics. You can filter results by design, color, typography and more to find the perfect reference for inspiration.
Each website featured on Httpster* is accompanied by a short description and screenshots. You can quickly evaluate the external the look and feel of a web resource and determine whether it meets your requirements.
address: https://httpster.net/
Buamai
This is an online archive where you can find images on graphic design, typography, and printing. The most creative ones are collected here and aesthetically pleasing examples of design and other art forms collected from around the world to inspire designers to create unique projects.
One of the strong advantages of the site is the high quality of the images. The service allows you to use photos of people from advertising campaigns, and also set censorship for images. Among the shortcomings of the resource, one can highlight the difficulty in finding the author of the photo.
Buamai offers a huge variety of design works of different styles, genres and directions. There is almost everything here: from minimalist design to surrealistic illustrations. Visual aesthetics, thoughtful details and unique ideas - every work at Buamai is a real art.
address: https://www.buamai.com/
SAVEE
This site is created for those who want to come up with something as creative and cool as possible. Here you can find inspiration for everyone day, save images to boards and upload your images. The site offers a huge collection of various design ideas, projects and trends of various styles and directions, starting from icons and logos to web design and illustrations.
The curators who compile the collections of SAVEE projects attach great importance to quality and creativity. Therefore, designers can to be sure that they will find only the best works in the catalog that will inspire them with great ideas.
address: https://savee.it/
Conclusion:
In conclusion, let’s add that cool references can be found not only on specialized sites. Many interesting ideas for inspiration is found in ordinary free stock photos, web galleries and social networks.
Examples of work, stylish images, creative solutions — all this helps to develop your creative intuition, realize design vision and enjoy creating your own wonderful projects. Look for them, browse, get inspired, accumulate experience and create with pleasure.