Finding inspiration is not always as simple as it sounds, whether you’ve been designing for years or only weeks. Below is a collection of 100 great web resources to find inspiration and direction on your next project, whether it be online or in print.
These range from galleries of graphic and web design to online magazines and a few unconventional sources of inspiration. Keep reading to see our recommendations and then share your favorite sources of inspiration in the comments.
Veer: Ideas - A huge idea gallery from stock photography company Veer formatted as a blog and including news and updates from the company itself.
Delicious CSS - A CSS web design gallery that was founded because of the lack of features for tracking design ideas on traditional social bookmarking sites. Categorizes sites in useful ways (such as by color) in ways that traditional social bookmarking sites don’t.
Raster - A regularly-updated gallery of photography and art with collections broken into “chapters.” Founded in 2001, its only goal is to provide inspirational images from a collective of creative minds.
CSS Galaxy - A very simple French gallery of CSS website designs that selects sites based on their standards-compliance, technique, coherent graphic design, and aesthetic.
CSS Uber Clean - A gallery of exceptional CSS-based designs. The sites featured all contain simple, minimalist, super-clean designs.
deviantART - A gallery for all types of artwork, both traditional and digital, that serves as an excellent source of inspiration for all kinds of projects. Just be careful not to get sucked in and spend three days looking through it when you have deadlines to meet!
muse - A collection of some of the best commercial artwork out there. Includes interviews with the artists who create the designs that reveal what their inspiration was.
Behance Network - Features a gallery of all kinds of creative projects including illustration, music, web design, typography, photography and more.
Depthcore - An international collective of modern art and digital media that releases chapters every three or four months featuring work contributed by members.
Designflavr - A gallery featuring all kinds of artwork and design including Flash websites, CSS websites, vector art, advertising, abstract design, photo manipulation, and more.
Web Creme - A web design gallery with more than 330 pages of great designs. Search the archives by the month a design was featured or by color.
CSS Remix - A gallery of beautiful CSS designs where you can sort designs by what’s popular or up-and-coming.
muse - A collection of some of the best commercial artwork out there. Includes interviews with the artists who create the designs that reveal what their inspiration was.
Behance Network - Features a gallery of all kinds of creative projects including illustration, music, web design, typography, photography and more.
Depthcore - An international collective of modern art and digital media that releases chapters every three or four months featuring work contributed by members.
Designflavr - A gallery featuring all kinds of artwork and design including Flash websites, CSS websites, vector art, advertising, abstract design, photo manipulation, and more.
Web Creme - A web design gallery with more than 330 pages of great designs. Search the archives by the month a design was featured or by color.
CSS Remix - A gallery of beautiful CSS designs where you can sort designs by what’s popular or up-and-coming.
Typechart - A gallery of typography for the web with CSS styles included. You can search available styles by font, emphasis (whether something is bold, italic, etc.), type size (heading, body, etc.) and more. Also lets you compare Windows ClearType rendering and Apple font rendering.
CreativeDepart - A gallery of design, art, photography, and more with its own inspiring design. Their goal is to increase awareness of the designs they love to open up more avenues to the creators they admire. You can also submit designs you’d like to see become a part of the site.
CSS Mania - Another CSS gallery with more than 13,000 sites and a blog. View galleries by month or by topic (associations, media, web developers, blogging, etc.)
Screenalicio.us - A gallery featuring more than 10,000 website screenshots. Offers an RSS feed for keeping up with the best new website designs online.
One Page Love - An awesome collection of single-page websites. Covers portfolios, applications, and even temporary landing pages with enough information to help a visitor make an appropriate decision. Also includes searchable tags for finding inspiration from similar sites.
Design Snack - Features two different galleries, one for XHTML/CSS designs and one for Flash. You can browse designs by color or category.
Design Shack - A searchable CSS gallery with more than 1700 designs that lets you browse by category (such as blog, magazine, photography, design, etc.), layout, or color.
eduStyle - Designing websites for educational institutions is sometimes more challenging due to the volume of information and the intended audiences (after all, it has to appeal to current students, prospective students, parents, professors, alumni, etc.). This site has a huge gallery of college and university websites sorted by categories and tags, and also features articles on design and other resources.
COLOURlovers - A community-based color gallery that includes colors, palettes, news, and real-world design examples. Members get points for being active participants in the community.
Faveup - A gallery of logos, business cards, flash and CSS websites where you can vote for your favorites. One of Faveup’s main purposes is to provide inspiration to designers and to showcase and provide links to great designs.
CSSclip - Sort websites by color or look at the Best of 2009 websites. The site also includes news and other resources for designers.
InspirationKing - Another gallery that started as a personal resource before going public. Offers an RSS feed and features a number of well-known websites in its design gallery.
Ads of the World - Check out print, TV, radio, online, outdoor and other types of advertisements from all over the world to get inspiration for both online and offline design projects.
Design Flood - Vote on a scale of 1-9 on the sites featured in this gallery or just browse for new ideas. All the sites featured are handpicked for being unique and well-designed.
Darkeye - Web design gallery where you can search by color or keyword. You can also browse recent submissions, most viewed, and highest rated sites, and you can vote and leave comments on featured designs.
TextureKing - More than 300 textures divided up by category—grunge, plaster, rust, wood, glass, and more. You can then download the textures as free stock photos.
The Cool Hunter - A gallery of all things awesome, including architecture, design, stores, and more based in Australia. The site serves as a celebration of modern creativity in all its forms and is a global hub for everything cool, innovative, original, and thoughtful.
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