How to find inspiration for a graphic designer

In any of the professions that you dedicate your time to making something from scratch, the same fear enters us. The fear of facing a blank page when you are a writer. Or finding yourself with a canvas and not knowing what to paint. It also happens to us when designing for a brand or personal branding, that we don't know where to start. In this article we are going to see how to find inspiration for a graphic designer.

It is not just about thinking and thinking, in front of your favorite design tool, until the right idea comes out. No person who is dedicated to this profession will recommend that way of working. Look for different sources of inspiration, how can it be to assess what has already been done. One of the most powerful tools is knowing what is out there, observing your environment. But there are more keys, which we are going to show you.

Observe everything around you

For a designer or illustrator, observing everything that surrounds them is essential.. To do this, the first step is to go outside. Something highly inadvisable is to stay continuously in the studio or the room where you work. Since the examples to work are outside our four walls. In this way we can contrast and even debate what errors those examples that we see have.

Any bus stop poster or small business sign, can serve as inspiration. Since we can discern what kind of techniques each one has used. If it is more of an illustration or photographic retouching. The typography or the colors in trend. What do you want to convey and what did you forget, that could be so important for that campaign.

A good collector of trends

When we freelance, we tend to do it from home when it comes to designers.. Our internet, computer equipment and electronic brush. There is nothing else necessary, except for a good collection. Like many things in life, fashion returns. And this is how we can observe through designs created in other times how we can be inspired.

Cuts from old magazines, design books from other years, posters in last year's trends. Or everything that we think could have established a before and after at the time it was published. That color combination, the use of lines that evoke different meanings or the return of a certain tone of message or color can be of great inspiration for you.

Sketching, dirty drawings

Another of the tools that can be and will be very useful are notebooks and pens.. Nothing digital. This can be useful to capture that diffuse idea that you have in your head, but that you do not know how to specify. Through sketches and drawings or dirty letters you can see how it would look. On many occasions, what works well in your head, then it is not so well embodied in a specific design.

It may also turn out that you have many ideas and jump from one to another without clearly defining what you think the design needs.. That also means that, if you write it in a notebook, you will not forget what you thought the first thing in the morning. And you can stop thinking about it and keep looking, since you have the peace of mind that you will not forget it by having it recorded in your notebook.

In the end it always happens that any designer has several notebooks, with many scribbles and half of them not completed. But they continue to buy each new project that is started.

Get inspired by the tutorials Creativos Online

Another way to get inspired is to read tutorials, tricks, resources or inspirational posts like the ones we write in Creativos Online. Many times we write about logos created by big companies or a compilation about tools such as fonts, icons, colors or images that can help you as resources for your designs.

These articles are created to help graphic designers who are actively looking for different ways to get inspired on their way.. You can carry out searches through our search engine on the main page about what you need to look for at that moment and download all those resources that we provide. You can also share your comments with us on each article, giving your opinion on it or giving us suggestions on other topics.

Other websites to inspire you

There are multiple pages that deal with topics about graphic design such as Creativos Online. Some of these pages specialize in specific topics and others do so in a more generic way. They also try to give resources so that the designer has tools that he did not have before and that you can use for your diary. Sometimes web pages ask you to subscribe, in order to download some of these resources.

• 40 fever: This is a marketing blog that writes articles on social networks, designs in them and topics related to advertising, which can help you to know the trends of the brands.
• brandemia: This page specializes in brand branding. Many of his articles go in the direction of analyzing brand logos, rebranding that has just happened, and design analysis.
• Pinterest: This social network is focused on images, through it you can see multiple ways of expressing something. It is a visual and easy way to see different ideas to show a specific item or service.
• Behance: Adobe's social network, for creatives. You can filter any kind of design related thing. Large and small designers show their works, some of them unofficial rebranding and other consolidated works.
• Vecteezy: This is a bank of graphic resources where you can find inspiration. Many of these images are paid, but if you just need it for inspiration you don't need registration, but you can also find real gems of resources for free to add to your design.
• Awards: It is a reference website in the graphic design sector to find inspiration with the graphic design trends of the moment