There are hundreds of design blogs online. I have thoughtfully chosen over 80 of my absolute favorites for this must-read list and have categorized them for easy navigation. Which do you like best?
This list was compiled slowly. I’ve been bookmarking my favorite blog posts for months, and in doing so, have visited the same useful design blogs over and over. Those blogs that showed up again and again in my bookmarking system were the ones that made this talented list. These are the sites that I have found offer the highest quality content to their readers.
I’ve categorized each of the blogs into one of ten main categories: All-in-One, Inspiration, Tutorials, Web Development/Code, Freelance, Logos & Typography, Advice & Discussion, Freebies & Giveaways, Blogging, and Micro-Blogs/Links. That does not mean that the blog doesn’t offer anything else. It just means that the blog has a main focus. Creative Opera, for example, really focuses on giving advice to new designers or design students. But, we offer many other things as well — and have plans to expand greatly in the upcoming months. I’m not trying to pigeonhole anyone, I just want to make it easier for you to find what you are looking for. Hopefully you’ll be able to find a few blogs here that will be helpful to you in your design career. As an added bonus, I’ve chosen one of my favorite posts from each to share with you. Enjoy!
ALL-IN-ONE:
These blogs have a little of everything, and are a one-stop-shop for anything and everything design-related.
Smashing Magazine | 10 Common Mistakes in Logo Design
Webdesigner Depot | The 960 Grid System Toolbox & Resources
Six Revisions | Feedback. The Creativity Killer.
You The Designer | 7 Perfect WordPress Portfolio Themes
Hongkiat | 50 Beautiful Hand-Drawn Web Design
The Design Cubicle | 10 Common Typography Mistakes
My Ink Blog | How to Create Your Own Photoshop Brushes
Web Designer Wall | 30 Untypical WordPress Sites
Web Design Ledger | 16 Best Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Web Designs
Noupe | Going Freelance: The Pros & Cons With “Top Web Designers”
Design Reviver | 200+ Textures, Brushes, and Fonts: Ultimate Grunge Roundup
Line25 | How to Convert a Photoshop Mockup to XHTML/CSS
Arbenting | Details on the 10 Most Helpful WordPress Design Blogs
Vandelay Design | Gallery of 3D Elements in Web Design
Outlaw Design Blog | How to Resell Hosting: A Guide For Web Designers
Fuel Your Creativity | 30 Dual Element Logos, Do You See Them All?
Speckyboy | 14 Essential Wordpress Development and Design Cheat Sheets
Graphic Design Blog | 25 logos with hidden messages – Amazing Graphic Designing tricks!
Spyre Studios | Top 12 Free Content Management Systems (CMS)
Smashing Apps | 23 Colorful And Inspiring Web Designs Where Textures Are In Full Action
DesignM.ag | 30 Top Sources of Typography Inspiration
Function | How-To: Taking WordPress One Step Further
Minervity | 14 Invaluable Tools to Check the Real Worth of Your Design Work
Crazy Leaf Design Blog | Web 2.0 Guide and 2000+ Resources
instantShift | 40 Sources To Download High-Quality Free Photoshop PSD Stuff
Design was Here | 80+ Inspiring Quotes about Design
Naldz Graphics | 60+ Most Beautiful and Creative Business Cards Design
Spoon Graphics | Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices
GoMediaZine | 12 Tips For Flawless Service & Happy Clients
Inspired Magazine | 15 Fresh Wordpress Themes To Get The Coolest Portfolio For You Or Your Studio
Typesett Magazine | How To Properly Archive Your Design Work
1st Webdesigner | 31 Useful Twitter Plugins For Wordpress To Choose From
Veerle’s Blog | Placing a CSS background image horizontally right on an h2 using a span element
PSD Fan | 20+ Photoshop Light Effects Tutorials to Light up Your Day
Velvet Ant | 30 Designer-Driven Showcase Sites
Lee Munroe | Popular Design Blogs Share Their Stats
INSPIRATION:
These blogs are a constant source of inspiration, with showcases and galleries galore.
Abduzeedo | 45 Amazing Type Faces – Typographic Portraits
Dzine Blog | 50 Beautiful Website Designs For your Inspiration
Inspiredology | 37 Examples of Unique Navigation
Toxel | 20 Unusual and Creative Packaging Designs
WellMedicated | 40 Beautiful Web Design Portfolios
Design Shard | Amazing Ornamental Design Inspiration – Baroque Style
Styletime | Inspiration from Collage Art
Francesco Mugnai | 70 more fantastic 404 error pages
2experts Design | 15 Coolest Minimalist WebDesigns Using Photograph as Background
Designflavr | Beautiful High Speed Water Photography
Web Urbanist | Faux Photoshop: 15 Incredible Images That Look Altered but Aren’t
Fresh Creation | Top 10 Webby 5 Word Speeches
TUTORIALS:
Looking to learn something? These blogs are for you!
PSD Tuts+ | Using Your Camera’s Histogram to Take Better Digital Photographs
Vector Tuts+ | How to Use Multi-Layered Illustrator Artwork in InDesign
Tutorial9 | How To Create An Abstract Floral Explosion in Photoshop
PSD Vault | Create a Realistic Break-Apart Effect with Debris Brushset in Photoshop
TutorialBlog | 10 Quick & Dirty Tricks for Easy Custom Web Backgrounds
PSDVibe | Coding: Corporate WordPress Style Layout
WEB DEVELOPMENT/CODE:
These blogs focus on web design and the programming side of design, covering topics like XHTML, CSS, PHP and many more.
CSS-Tricks | Designing for WordPress: Complete Series & Downloads
Net Tuts+ | 24 JavaScript Best Practices for Beginners
DevSnippets | Styling your Lists: 20+ Brilliant How to’s and Best Practices
Usability Post | Drop IE6 Support — Give People a Reason to Upgrade
FREELANCE:
These blogs are geared toward freelance designers. They are full of helpful advice and resources.
Freelance Switch | 101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate New Client Leads
Guerrilla Freelancing | The 10 biggest mistakes people make on twitter
Freelance Folder | Increase Your Freelancing Income by Narrowing Your Focus
LOGOS and TYPOGRAPHY:
These blogs feature logo design posts, and/or focus on typography.
Logo Design Love | 85 of the best logo design resources
Just Creative Design | The Logo Design Process of TOP Logo Designers
ImJustCreative | 9 Solid Logo Design Tips for Beginners
I Love Typography | So you want to create a font.
ADVICE and DISCUSSION:
These blogs dig deep with relevant posts, professional advice, thoughtful answers to timely questions, and much user discussion.
Think Vitamin | Launch a Business, Not a Side Project
David Airey | Getting your foot in the door
A List Apart | Taking the Guesswork Out of Design
From The Couch | The Letterpress Trend Has To Go
Ideas on Ideas | More mess; less B.S. (or: Nine simple suggestions for using social media)
We Are not Freelancers | We’re not machines, why do we work like ones?
Positive Space Blog | SEO Works, Just Not to the Client’s Expectations
FREEBIES and GIVEAWAYS:
These blogs are packed with free brushes, icons, patterns and more.
Colorburned | 10 Incredible Seamless Destroyed Vectors
Think Design | Free Vectors – 27+ Abstract Geometric Wireframe Vectors
BittBox | Free Hi-Res Photoshop Brushes: Abstract Splatter
BLOGGING:
Blogs about blogging and blog design.
Pro Blog Design | 10 Ways to Speed up Your Wordpress Blog
ProBlogger | How To Land Big Interviews When Your Blog Is Still Small
In the Woods | Tips For Creating High Selling Templates
Designers who Blog | Killed Ideas Blog
Skelliewag | Tutorial: How to Write a Viral-ready Article in 2 Hours Flat
MICRO-BLOGS/LINKS:
These blogs gather and post design-related links from across the web.
Creattica Daily
Script & Style
Design Newz
Andy Sowards
CSS Globe
Photoshop Lady
Webdesign-Ne.ws
Sharebrain
Zach Krasner Times
The Design Inspiration
119 Responses
Thank you for including Minervity.com in this epic list of great Design Blogs. The greatness of most of these sites are just amazing and being mentioned here is truly an honor.
Thank you!
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Thanks for including our article in this incredible list.
Alex | CrazyLeaf Design Blog´s last blog ..Featured Designer – Mel Ndiweni of Acuity Designs
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I really like Six Revisions a lot, and Design Shard is a good one too. Thanks a lot for this list!
Caitlin´s last blog ..Free Minimalist WordPress Themes!
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Man this is huge…
How much time you have lost writting this article / post
It’s really amazing… by the way you have forgot to mention Zinmag Remedy blog designers, there are awesome…
Eldinovsky´s last blog ..Firefox i Chrome
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Very nice list, I have some of those in my RSS reader, but fact is that you have some blogs that are solely list-blogs like “30 creative ways to take a dump”, which I remove from my RSS reader pretty fast.
Mariusz´s last blog ..Inspiration: Streets of Kraków
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Thanks for the mention, and great list, some i havent seen.
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Really great collection. There’s about 10 blogs which I did not know.
I must say though that I would have loved to have made it into the list…
Franz Jeitz´s last blog ..Nothing Lasts Forever: Free July 09 Calendar Wallpaper
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Thank you for the resources.
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Awesome List! I would suggest the following 2 sites
http://www.webappers.com/2007/08/08/10-stunning-mac-design-websites-for-mac-applications/
http://thedesigninspiration.com
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What about Design Assembly?? By far the most interesting site for topical debate and design critique from practicing designers at some of the more highly regarded studios around the world.
http://www.designassembly.org
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WOW. thank you for including my Guerrilla Freelancing site in the likes of such great company. This is definitely a post people should see. I’m following every site on here that I am not currently already (I’d say I’m about 60 out of 80 already subscribed to).
Mike Smith´s last blog ..BTM is rebranding as GUERRILLA (very soon)
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Awesome list! Very thoughtfully composed. Great work. Thanks so much for featuring Think Design alongside such awesome sites!
Nick Pagano´s last blog ..Free WordPress Theme – Versatility Lite Updated (2.8 Friendly)
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I’m so glad everyone is enjoying the post so far!! I did take forEVER to put together!! Thank you so much for your suggestions; you mentioned some really fantastic blogs that I left off the list — some that I’m slapping myself for, and a couple I didn’t know about! I’ll be making additions today. Keep the suggestions coming! And thank you all for stopping by
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Thanks for the inclusion of FUEL on your list! Great roundup, I think I subscribe to every one on the list!
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Nice roundup! Thanks so much for including MyInkBlog on this awesome list
Andrew Houle´s last blog ..Freebie: 7 High Resolution Stone Textures
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Awesome list!!! Creative Opera should definitely be on this list
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Great list! I humbly suggest my newest site http://zachkrasner.com as an addition
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Exhaustive list! took 2 hours to review and add em all to RSS. Thanks!
John Cozen´s last blog ..FlashCamp SF – Rundown and Images
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Wow I just found this post and am completely honored to be listed up there with such great Design Blogs, Each and Everyone of them just scream quality.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you!!
Andy Sowards´s last blog ..Daily Links
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Great job on this list. I subscribe to most already but you gave me some more to add.
(Some day when my blog grows up it hopes to be on one of these types of lists)
Brian McDaniel´s last blog ..How I Got 3500+ Twitter Followers In 90 Days (By Just Being Me!)
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Thank you for featuring instahtShift.com in this amazing list of great Design and inspiration Blogs. Appreciate it !!
DKumar M.´s last blog ..145 Ultimate Round-Up Of Photoshop Tutorials and Resources
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cough.. cough…
typesett.com is definitely a great website. Seriously though, thanks a bunch for including us. We try to still capture non-web design too, so we often miss these lists.
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Nice Collection , all those sites are great , looks like my site is not ready to e featured as a nice design blog haha.
Keep up the great work
Regards
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Whoa! Epic post! Thanks for including WellMedicated in such great company. I’m a huge fan of most of these blogs, but there’s a few that slipped under my radar too.
Andrew´s last blog ..45 Beautifully Designed Book Covers
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Good list! I would also recommend http://www.designbrawl.com for lots of vector freebies.
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Thank you so much for featuring us, it’s a great honor to be listed. I love the selection, and read most of the blogs here, and I just learned about a few that didn’t know about.
Walter – Webdesigner Depot´s last blog ..50 Dazzling Examples of Polar Panorama Photography
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Great List! Picked up a few new ones to subscribe to. Thnx
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Nice list, but I see a lack of ForTheLose.org
Ralph´s last blog ..FTL Weekly Review – Vol. 13
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May I suggest Web Design Blog? A blog offering free vector graphics and other useful stuff for web designers.
http://Garcya.us/blog !
Garcya´s last blog ..Logo Design
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Awesome list! I bookmarked some new blogs that I didn’t know of. Would have liked to be included in the list but, oh well, maybe next time!
Tim Smith´s last blog ..Interview with David Leggett
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Awesome collection! I’ve known some of them, but I discovered good ones. Thanks.
Shinichiro Matsuda´s last blog ..11 Inspirational Vimeo Groups for Motion Graphic Designers
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Some other suggestions:
Visual blog about design and advertising:
http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/
Sometimes hilarious but always sharp blog about advertising and copy:
http://copyranter.blogspot.com/
The most excellent Netdiver magazine:
http://www.netdiver.net
Videoblog:
http://www.freshcreation.com/
And our humble Twitter page
http://twitter.com/idreams
For people who make websites:
http://www.alistapart.com/
Blog of Creative Review magazine:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog
idreams´s last blog ..idreams: More very purrity stuff here: http://bit.ly/1DuZC
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Great post! I visit many of these blogs on a regular basis. How about http://www.logocritiques.com?
Erik at Logo Critiques´s last blog ..Idaho Film Project Logo Critique
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Hey,
thank you so much for including http://sharebain.info to your list. !
Greetings,
thomas
thomas´s last blog ..Graphic Tools: Web Elements Kit
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Oops, awesome list!
Phaoloo´s last blog ..Convert Your Source Code To HTML Easily With HighLight
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Great list, sad that Inspired Mag didn’t make it http://inspiredm.com/
Jill´s last blog ..15 Fresh Wordpress Themes To Get The Coolest Portfolio For You Or Your Studio
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Great list here! I follow a bunch of these sites myself. It’s getting harder, though. The amount of creativity continues to grow, while my brain continues to protest with screams of “Information overload!”
Lelia Thomas´s last blog ..Building a Good Art Portfolio Part 1: Website Hosting and Domain Registration
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The other one i like is..
Fazai38’s Inspirational Blog – http://blog.fazai38.com
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Awesome collection! Some unknown!! Thanks
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This article has been shared on favSHARE.net.
favSHARE´s last blog ..30 WordPress Development Tutorials
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Thanks for the great designer blog list!
Mahallo Media´s last blog ..78 фотографски правила за идиоти
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Awesome collection! where is http://www.2expertsdesign.com
Akhtar Sheikha´s last blog ..List of Handsome Packaging Design Inspiration
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Thanks for the feature Manda! Wow, this collection is awesome. Looks like I am going to have a lot more blogs to subscribe to after reading this post!
Antonea Nabors´s last blog ..13 examples of new retro and vintage packaging
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Great List.. I already visit a lot of them..
They are really great one-stop-shop for any and everything design related !
Thanks, great work and great blog here !
Enk. ´s last blog ..I Love Typography – Wallpaper Freebie
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Thanks so much for featuring PSDFAN in this great list. There were several blogs that I hadn’t come across, so thanks for sharing
.
Tom Ross´s last blog ..25 Totally Immersive Web Experiences
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Maybe you could add http://www.fubiz.net
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Not marketing here, but do look at domainfunk.com, helps webmasters too. Upcoming blog.
Domain Funk´s last blog ..Jquery Feedback Tab
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80? Oh great. I have my work cut out this weekend ! Hopefully I’ll get through a few of them.
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Thanks everyone for your amazing suggestions!! I’ve added enough of your recommended blogs to put the total over 90! (I also added a couple of my own that I realized I had forgotten.) Don’t fear if your favorite blog hasn’t been included. I selected those that I thought best fit this post, but bookmarked the others for two upcoming posts, one on new (up-and-coming) blogs, and one on design magazines (more news-related, less bloggy).
I really appreciate you all stopping by, and I’m so glad that you’re enjoying the list. If you have more suggestions or favorite blogs, please continue to list them in the comments, and I’ll add them or bookmark them for future posts.
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For the future, you might consider: Success Secrets of the Graphic Design Superstars: http://www.willsherwood.com
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Great list!
Much thanks…
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This is a great list. Next you need to write a post on how to keep up with all this reading
Michael Krapf´s last blog ..It’s All About the Apps!
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Damn, that sound’s so easy if you think about it.
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I miss one upcoming but already successful designer blog though. Which is the web design blog of ‘Gaya Kessler’ at http://www.gayadesign.com
Seriously, this guy is a genius with java script!
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Great list! A few to add to my RSS here. Thx.
tim´s last blog ..32 Unbelievable Paintings Made On The iPhone and iPod Touch
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Great List!
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really good list of blogs, thanks
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Thanks these are great design blogs!
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Thanks a lot for the links
good job !!
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would like to suggest http://www.clickforwebdesign.com/webdesign-blog.html for this category
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Cool site, love the info.
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what an excellent list. Thanks. I’m glad I stumbled here.
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There is obviously a lot to know about this. There are some good points here.
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greta lists.. thanks for sharing.. these could really help!
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Awesome list.
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Hey, I found your blog while searching on Google your post looks very interesting for me. I will add a backlink and bookmark your site. Keep up the good work!
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Good article, thank you
If you are interesting 2012 year, by the way, welcome to us
http://2012earth.net
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Great collection of design blog. Awesome list . Thanks for sharing this nice post.
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great list, I never knew that it could be so helpfull that all of these amazing sites can be find as list. Awsome work!!
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I’d evaluate the era of to fit brace with that too!
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