Resources for Graphic Designers

Organizations

1. http://www.gag.org/The Graphic Artists Guild promotes and protects its members and is committed to improving conditions for all graphic designers and the whole industry. They also produce the well known Graphic Artists Guild Handbook which is an essential part of any designers library.

2. http://www.aiga.org/AIGA, the professional association for design is dedicated to protecting and advancing design and its importance to society. AIGA now represents more than 19,000 designers through national activities and local programs developed by more than 55 chapters and 200 student groups.

Design Tournaments

3. http://www.cutandpaste.com/events/Cut&Paste is a world wide live digital design tournament that goes on every year in multiple locations award prizes to the worlds best anonymous designers.
Generally Useful

4. http://www.lipsum.com/This is a pretty famous site within the design community; you can generate dummy text on this site to put into your designs until the real copy is available.

5. http://www.alexa.com/Alexa is a traffic ranking site that is widely used to research other sites. It’s not the most accurate tool but it has become common place and your Alexa rank is often a variable when determining advertising costs or site popularity.

6. http://www.csstype.com/An incredibly useful site that shows you exactly how web fonts will look on your screen.

7. http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/This is the ultimate branding library with thousands of the worlds most famous and popular logos. Great for researching corporate identity.

8. http://blogsearch.google.com/An easy way to weed out site and just find blog on the topics you are interested in.

9. http://www.digg.com/Digg.com is a great place for offbeat news and can be in indispensable weapon in your arsenal of traffic getting tools. You can submit well written articles to dig and if it is dugg a lot and becomes popular it can bring in a substantial amount of traffic to your website for free.

10. http://www.bloglines.com/Bloglines is a great way to organize all the blogs you read into one place instead of having to visit a bunch of different websites and is a good time saver.

11. www.mozilla.com/en-US/Arguably the best web browser out right now. I use it for most of my web browsing but don’t forget the other browsers when it comes to optimizing your website. Not everyone uses the same browser.

12. www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/This is my favorite email client to use. It’s simple, efficient, and easy to use with solid email alert features. Very handy if you get important emails often.

13. http://www.adobe.com/Home to the well known design software we all know and love. Good site to check out once in a while for updates and help regarding software such as Photoshop and illustrator.

Networking & Freelance Work

14. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/about/cities.htmlCraigslist is one of my favorite forums to use. There are tons of new design jobs and gigs added every day but the competition is stiff so bring your “A” Game.

15. http://www.getafreelancer.com/If you are looking for an affordable but professional coder this is the place to go. Freelancers bid on projects you post.

16. http://www.facebook.com/Facebook is growing incredibly fast and is a great way to network with other people and advertising your design services. Many professionals are moving to facebook over other social networking sites.

17. http://www.myspace.com/Myspace has tons of potential when it comes to snagging freelance gigs or networking. They have a decently active classifieds section that you can use to market your work.

18. http://www.linkedin.com/Linkedin is a very popular site for professionals and is a valuable networking tool.

19. http://www.krop.com/Krop.com has a database of jobs for designers, artists, and developers with an instant and easy to use search feature.

20. http://www.coroflot.com/Corofloat.com is a site where you can promote and host your design portfolio, search for jobs and post to hire some one.
Stock Photography

21. http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?view=fullThis stock photography site has incredible photographers and even better prices for illustrations and photos. It will make your life way easier as a designer and has many other benefits such as making money selling your illustrations and photography, networking with other design professionals, promoting your portfolio site, access to active forums and much more!

22. http://pro.corbis.com/Corbis is one of the leading stock photography sites with millions of images online, featuring historical, fine art, business, technology, celebrity, travel, sports and nature photography.

23. http://www.shutterstock.com/Shutter Shock is a subscription based stock photography site with over two million royalty-free stock photos available.

24. http://www.bigstockphoto.com/Big Stock Photo lets you upload and download low-cost digital stock photography. They have well over a million photos organized into categories.

25. http://www.gettyimages.com/Home.aspxGetty Images offers a large searchable collection of rights-managed or royalty-free images and films. Getty Images is a great site if you are looking for current event and public figure related photography.

Color & Charts

26. kuler.adobe.comKuler is a useful site to go to find color themes for your projects. Users can submit their own themes to be rated and you can search for many type of color themes.

27. http://www.colourlovers.com/Colour Lovers is a great site with user submitted color palettes and even cooler is their blog that creates color palettes based on each blog posts at the end of every post.

28. http://www.logoorange.com/color/color-codes-chart.php
Nice chart that converts PMS colors to CMYK and RGB color codes for you.

29. http://www.ideo.com/visualizer.htmlThis extremely useful but simple web safe color chart lets you easily see exactly how different colors will look on your screen.

Inspirational Sites

30. http://www.cssbeauty.com/CSS Beauty provides its users with a database of well designed CSS designed sites, as well as news and happenings related to the CSS Community.

31. http://www.thecoolhunter.net/The cool hunter looks for the coolest and craziest stuff from around the world. Be sure to check out the design and art sections on the site.

32. http://logopond.com/The Logo Pond is a great site to go to if you are looking for inspiration while designing a logo. You can even submit your own logo designs to be voted on and reviewed. Good way to get exposure for your studio or freelancing portfolio.

33. http://www.go2web20.net/The Web 2.0 Design style is the big thing right now and many websites are redesigning their look to get with the times. This awesome site has a massive collection of all the new web 2.0 logos and links the websites.

34. http://cssvault.com/CSS Vault has a collection of spectacular CSS websites and resources including: Articles, Demos, Layouts, Tutorials, and more.

35. http://www.stumbleupon.com/After selecting topics of interest you can stumble upon quality sites related to those topics. I have found countless amazing sites doing this and not only is it great for finding new sites but it can be a killer way to promote and drive traffic to your own portfolio site or blog.

Portfolio Sites

36. http://altpick.com/Altpic.com is a great portfolio website for artists and designers where many people come searching for the best oif the best. It is a great place to showcase your designs and talent.

37. http://www.portfolios.com/Portfolios.com is a portfolio search site where viewers can easily browse through thousands of free artist and designer portfolios.

38. http://www.deviantart.com/DeviantART is a large community of artists and designers who share their work with each other via an online portfolio. Many digital artists and illustrator flock to this site and you can even buy prints of your favorite artwork.

Design Magazines

39. http://www.printmag.com/PRINT magazine is a very famous bimonthly magazine about visual culture and design.

40. http://www.howdesign.com/HOW Magazine covers many areas of design such as the business aspect, new technologies, up and coming designers and is a place for creative inspiration.

41. http://www.idonline.com/I.D. magazine is an International design magazine that covers products, graphics, environments, interactive media and other design related areas.

42. http://www.computerarts.co.uk/Computer Arts is an informative site with free downloads, tutorials, galleries, competitions, a published magazine and much more.

43. http://www.maclife.com/MacLife.com provides news and analysis of the popular Apple products and also has daily blogs from Mac Life magazine editors and a nice selection of articles to read.

44. http://www.pcmag.com/This magazine is definitely handy for any designer. The hardware we use is the back bone of most of our work and PC Magazine has solid reviews of the leading equipment. I always look up products on their website before I buy anything.

45. http://www.pcworld.com/PC World is a great place for Computer and Internet news and information, Resources, how-tos, downloads, products and more.

Fonts

46. http://www.dafont.com/Dafont is an easy to use free font site with a large collection of fonts to download it. It has been around a while and is updated often with new fonts.

47. http://www.urbanfonts.com/Urban Fonts is new to the font world but has quickly established itself as a leader in the free font community. It has an excellent design and is right up there with dafont.com in my book.

48. http://www.fontshop.com/Font Shop offers great font collections on CD, free fonts, downloadable fonts, typography tips and more.

49. http://www.linotype.com/Linotype has a massive collection of the most popular and well known fonts available for download. They also have a font lounge with many interesting font related resources.

Tutorials

50. http://www.pixel2life.com/Pixel2life is one of the largest tutorial search engines on the internet providing great tutorials to graphic designers and programmers.

51. http://www.good-tutorials.com/Good Tutorials is a massive tutorial website with tens of thousands of tutorials for Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and more.

52. http://www.w3schools.com/If you need to brush up on your coding skills then this is the place to go. The information is accurate and up to date and its def worth taking all the tutorials.

53. http://youthedesigner.com/2007/09/27/www.tutorialoutpost.comTutorial Outpost has a vast collection of thousands of tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, 3D Studio Max, and more!

Photoshop Brushes

54. http://www.brusheezy.com/Brusheezy is a very useful site with lots of great sets of free brushes varying in style.

55. http://www.psbrushes.net/PS Brushes is home to over 500 Photoshop brushes that are all free to download and categorized for easy searching.

56. http://getbrushes.com/Get Brushes has sets of Photoshop brushes made up of various swirls, ornamental designs, and flourishes. flowers, dots, circles, and various other ornamentations.

Printers

57. http://www.4over4.com/4over4 is a good balance between quality and affordability and can handle most of the print jobs you would require.

58. http://www.modernpostcard.com/Modern postcard is known for its quality printing but can be a bit pricey compared to other sites. If you are looking for top notch printing though look no further.

59. http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/default.aspx?xnav=welcomebackVista Print provides custom full color printing services. You can print business cards, Christmas cards, stationery, postcards, magnets, brochures, address labels, and even more.

60. http://www.clubflyers.com/Club Flyers is an easy to use online printing service with many options available and fast shipping times.

61. http://www.alocalprinter.com/If you are looking for a way to help the environment as a graphic designer then check out the new age of eco friendly printing.

Blog Hosts

62. http://wordpress.com/Wordpress is my blog host of choice. It’s free and easy to set up on a server and there are tons of great themes and widgets available to use. I use Wordpress for all my blogs.

63. https://www.blogger.com/startBlogger is another very popular blog host. It has many of the same features Wordpress offers.

64. http://twitter.com/Twitter is a surprisingly fun, easy to use and useful site when it comes to letting people know what you are up too.

65. http://www.squidoo.com/Squidoo is an easy way to put up a quick and free website page about any topic you want. It is very popular in the affiliate marketing industry.

66. http://www.tumblr.com/Tumblr is another super easy blogging tool that is very similar to Squidoo and twitter and just as good as both of them.

Blogs

67. http://www.designobserver.com/ Design Observer is a well respected site in the design community that features writings related to all aspects of design and culture.

68. http://www.lifehack.org/ This great site is dedicated to hacking your life by providing you with tips and tricks to get things done quickly by automating, organizing and increasing your productivity.

69. http://ilovetypography.com/ I Love Typography is a great web site devoted to typography, type, fonts and typefaces of all kinds. If you love typography you will enjoy this site.

Web Design Forums

72. forums.digitalpoint.com
This is one of the biggest and most popular programming forums around; there are many thread topics raging from coding and servers to search engine optimization and graphic design.
It’s a great place to ask questions, find help or promote your services.

73. http://www.webmasterworld.com/This is a very active and informative forum on the world of web design. It is a great place to learn and have questions answered.

Graphic Design Forums

74. http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/This is a discussion forum dedicated to all topics related to graphic design.

75. http://www.graphic-design-forum.com/This is another active design forum that allows you to chat about graphic design and post designs for a review.

76. http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/This is a fine art and graphic design forum where many users showcase their work and discuss fine art and graphic design with fellow community members.

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