7 Interesting & Informative Websites For Creative Minds - March Edition.
We all need inspiration from time to time.
With the advent of the mobile phone, it's very easy to focus on trivial information on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Finding time for yourself to browse the Internet and keep up with industry trends can also be a struggle, especially when you have kids, work, gym, and so on.
You may also have difficulty finding sites that provide information which interests you and sparks the creativity to keep you motivated.
This monthly post aims to provide people in industries such as Design, Architecture, Photography, Technology and more, with a curated list of interesting and informative websites to help keep the creative juices flowing.
Managing Your ‘Favourite Website’ list.
If you're like me, your Promotions tab in Gmail is overflowing with newsletters from websites you don't remember signing up to.
It can be difficult to keep up with the influx of emails and I often find my myself deleting en masse without reading most of them.
Bookmarking can be a quick way to save sites and pages, however, I find folders can become disorganised quickly.
One tool I use, which is invaluable to me, is ‘Pocket’. Pocket has apps and extensions for Android, Chrome and Web, and is a simple way to save websites and pages. You can add specific ‘tags’ relating to a site or page and allows you to access and read articles offline. Pocket is a great way to streamline and organise your favourite sites and quickly access links when you're on the go.
So without further ado, let's get down to the nitty gritty.
We And The Color is a web magazine which provides daily inspiration around art and design. The site regularly features interesting projects from creative fields, including Design, Architecture, Art, Photography, Illustration, Motion, Fashion and more. Plus, they regularly release modern graphics, templates, and fonts for download. Well worth checking out on a daily basis.
I love catching up on the day's events after I jump into bed. Before I read a book, I'll give myself 30-45 minutes to reflect on the day, as well as surf the web. One site I like to visit often is MOCO LOCO. This site is dedicated to everything related to modern contemporary design and architecture, including; residential architecture, interior design, furniture, accessories, lighting, books, websites, and more. Lots of inspirational articles to keep you reading well into the night.
Uplabs is an excellent site if you need UI design inspiration for your next app or website. The site is divided into different sections around inspiration and downloads, with easy-to-access categories. The numerous categories within each section cover topics including User Interface, Apps, Icons, Websites, Illustrations, Animations, Landing pages, etc. Each design can be voted on, with the most popular reaching the top of their designated category.
Before & After Editing.
Although this website is in Greek, Google does an excellent job of translating it back into English. Focusing on Design, Media, Food and Tech & Science, there are tonnes of interesting articles to sink your teeth into. For those into photography like myself, I found this article particilarly intriguing - ‘Why do your photos never come out so beautiful’.
Muzli is not your average website. It actually works as a free app extension for Chrome and its goal is to provide designers with carefully curated inspirational content from around the web. You can easily select and manage which design, technology and news websites you wish to follow. Check out the video above for an in-depth explanation. I have recently installed it and on first impressions, I'm extremely impressed. I, for one, will be checking out Muzli on a daily basis.
It is always nice when someone else does the hard lifting. PrettyStuff.io is another online magazine which posts hand-selected works from the field of art, design, illustration and photography. It's an apt name for a useful, thought-provoking website.
Magenta has focused their website on one key element - Storytelling. I really like this website because they have taken the time to sit down and talk with designers and artists to understand their story and how they have implemented their processes. It feels like proper journalism, rather than simple content filler. For example, check out this excellent post on what designers and developers have built in response to America's new political regime.
We hope you enjoy this post and if you have a favourite, inspiring website you would like to share with us, we would love to hear from you. Happy surfing!