10 Amazing Sites Every Designer Should Bookmark

These 10 sites are filled with inspiration, education and resources. Here’s 10 useful sites every designer
should bookmark. These sites provide tips, tricks and freebies that will prove useful to even the most seasoned veteran.

1. Color Scheme Designer

An amazing application that allows you to develop color schemes. It is very easy to use and intuitive. This is a must-have tool for any designer. This makes brainstorming new color schemes fun and easy.

2. ShinyBinary.com

This is the online portfolio of Nik Ainley. Nik Ainley is a UK based illustrator who produces both
personal and commissioned work. His site says he taught himself Photoshop while getting a degree in physics
at Imperial College in London. I’m impressed he had any free time while studying physics, let alone time
for mastering Photoshop. I think this site contains some great inspirational work.

3. Outlaw Design Blog
The Design blog of Danny Outlaw. I have it on good authority that is his real name (just kidding). This blog is amazing. This guy has great content with all kinds of free resources, tutorials and tips. Danny Outlaw is one of the authors featured frequently in Smashing Magazine. I’m convinced if he wasn’t a Graphic Designer, he’d be a Rock star. This is an awesome site.

4. Lynda.com
This is a paid subscription tutorial site. For a low monthly fee, you have access to tons of tutorials by great instructors on a huge variety of topics including Photoshop, Illustrator, PHP, Javascript, CSS and more. And what’s really cool is they make it easy to stop your subscription and restart it again for those months when you don’t have the time for lessons.

5. PS Hero
This is one of my favorite Photoshop tutorial websites. The tutorials are clear and easy to follow. The site provides downloads of all the tutorial files for free. In addition, the Hero offers custom shapes and textures.

6. Texture Lovers.com
Texture Lovers archives some of the best free textures from around the web. They only archive textures that are free to use in commercial and personal work without worrying about giving credit to the source (no attribution). The site is well organized and features single textures and texture packs that you can search by category. The site also features some tutorials and inspiration.

7. 1stWebDesigner.com
1stwebdesigner is a design blog dedicated to bloggers, freelancers, web-developers and designers. Topics focus on web design,graphic design, tutorials and inspirational articles.

8. Inspiredology.com
Inspiredology.com is a great blog that offers a portal of design inspiration. A great new resource for graphic and web designers. It features freebies, interviews, and articles about different web design trends.

9. Share Some Candy.com
ShareSomeCandy.com is a curated collective of inspiring design finds and art. The site contains a huge variety of inspiring, beautiful things including architecture, furniture, graffiti, illustrations and logos.

10. Web Design Ledger
The Web Design Ledger is a publication written by web designers for web designers. The primary purpose of this site is to act as a platform for sharing web design related knowledge and resources. Topics range from design inspiration to tips and tutorials and everything in between.