As a designer, I am constantly gathering inspiration from the world around me; from colour pairings to typography to the shape of something as mundane as a rubbish bin. When sat at a computer, these whiffs of inspiration are harder to come by, and so online resources come in handy. Let’s talk about some of my favourites.

 

Typewolf

Jeremiah Shoaf is the designer behind Typewolf. This site offers both free and paid resources around typography; how to pair fonts, typographic cheat sheets, etc. Shoaf takes real world examples of typography from websites, campaigns and pop culture, and lists the fonts found in each.

What I like most about this resource is the alternative fonts. Shoaf gives a brief description of each featured font and provides several similar alternatives. There will almost always be a free alternative font listed, making typography accessible to all.

 

BP&O

For real world examples that go beyond typography, I always turn to BP&O, a website dedicated to showcasing some of the best branding and packaging around the globe.  I could spend all day flicking through this site – I’m distracted even now as I write this! When it comes to book design, BP&O offers inspiration for layout, cover design, typography, illustration style and colour palettes – it’s a one-stop shop for a designer feeling a little uninspired.

 

Coolors

Coolors is a colour palette generator. With just the tap of a spacebar, you can flick through thousands of colour combinations while locking down and swapping out colours along the way. This resource also allows you to add your own HEX codes to the swatches so you can build palettes around predetermined colours. It is super easy to use and offers a great starting place for choosing colours.

 

Going beyond

These resources have become valuable pieces of my designer tool kit – excellent for providing inspiration and speeding along the design concept process. The magic comes from using them as a springboard to spark ideas that evolve into something completely your own.

 

– Jane Heriot, Junior Graphic Designer