style="float: left; width: 400px; height: 400px;" />A picture is worth a thousand words – this is especially
true in business where the average American sees approximately 100 brands a day. Your business or
personal endeavor may have a website and blog, along with hours upon hours of internet marketing
resources, but you are still missing something. Whether or not you built your website creativity in the
first place – or began an offline advertising campaign – only several milliseconds pass before the human
eye makes a first impression.
So, simply put, you need to make sure your product, logo, and marketing materials are designed to
perfection. Staying on top of the newest and best design techniques and trends is imperative for new
company images or direction. Below are just a few of the best sources currently available for you to
maximize your design knowledge and support. Using these sources you’ll not only see an opportunity for
creative innovation, but you’ll find access to professionals along the way to execute ideas.
Top Places for Graphic Design Inspiration
Pinterest – About five years ago, another internet entrepreneur came up with an
awesome idea for inspirational sharing. The application and website alone prides itself on great quality
content and user-ship, which translates into wonderful inspiration for designs and slogans. People
around the world post various designs, products, quotes, and information about thousands of topics,
ultimately allowing different design communities to exist. If you’re interested in finding new, creative,
and inspiring ideas that are trending, Pinterest not only allows you to view these graphic designs, but
also tells you how many people are “liking” or “pinning” the designs – this helps take care of some of
your market research efforts.
QualitySignDesigner.com – Not all
graphic design projects are implemented online because marketing campaigns should always have a
human element. Guerilla marketing and traditional advertising are imperative for any small business to
grow because customers want to match a brand with a physical entity. Qualitysigndesigner.com is one
of a few websites that offer services for printed banners, signs, and flags – but the company excels in
other areas as well. The online designer allows businesses to print customized or personalized marketing
products through their website. In addition, the inspiration is right in front of you with access to design
templates, previous themes or patterns, and free consultant for design tips when using the website.
There is also a blog with newly updated articles and information about design and successful print
marketing applications.
Creative Bloq.com – This is a smaller, less known blog about graphic design. Although
Pinterest provides inspirational pictures and colorful design displays, creativebloq.com is packed with
information about design and has been built for the design community by the design community. If you
are interested in logo designs, they have multiple blog posting about pro tips for proper execution. If
you are looking for marketing campaign discovery, the professionals writing on this site have decades of
experience with launching new ideas and product designs. This site is one to bookmark and continue to
visit on a daily basis.
StumbleUpon.com – There is always so much information on the internet about a
particular topic or industry that reading everything currently available would not only be time-
consuming, but would be destructive to your design goals. The more time you spend researching graphic
design tips, the less time you’ll have to implement a new idea or design – which is devastating in an
industry where the next best thing happens so quickly. StumbleUpon.com is great, not only for finding
relevant, real-time websites about graphic design, but also for any topics or subject matters in which
you have questions. Stumbleupon.com does not just provide singular options for information, but crawls
the internet for blogs, static websites, and social media that pertain specifically to a given topic of
interest. It is the best place to find everything you need to know about a subject matter.
Matthew Hall is a small business owner who uses a combination of onlien and offline marketing
techniques to help grow his business and capture as many consumers as possible. He writes on the side
to help others trying to become successful to realize their dreams. You can learn more about Matthew
on Google+.