3 Unlikely Places To Find Graphic Design Ideas For Content
There comes a time when every creative professional runs out of ideas. It feels defeating and frightening, especially if you’re coming up on a deadline and you know you have to think of an idea quickly. When you get to that place where you just can’t figure out what visuals to incorporate into your next marketing campaign, you need a push to get that next great spark. Today, we’re sharing three unlikely sources to help you find graphic design ideas to incorporate into your marketing plan.
Where Can I Find Graphic Design Ideas?
Graphic design ideas can come from both conventional and unconventional sources, including:
1. Real-World Objects and Locations
Sometimes, walking away from your design or your computer generates ideas. You can find art ideas all around you if you’re looking for them. Get out of the office and go to places or find items like:
- Art museums or galleries: Look at works from famous, historical, contemporary, and local artists. Pay attention to their subject choices, mediums, and use of design principles.
- Books and magazines: Look for reading material with commercial advertisements or fashion content. These works often incorporate ideas from other graphic designers, photographers, marketers, artists, and fashion designers.
- Everyday objects: Look at everyday objects that you use throughout your daily routines, such as silverware, electronics, furniture, or garden tools. Pay attention to their lines and curves, color choices, and feature placement.
- Your neighborhood or town: Take a walk through your neighborhood, town, or city. Pay attention to decorations on homes, natural formations, street art, and architecture for creative inspiration.
2. Online Objects and Locations
Image via Unsplash by @kseverin
Can’t get away from technology to get inspired? The internet has you covered. Look for graphic design ideas through sources like:
- Design communities: Sites like Dribbble help you see what other designers are creating in real time. Register to contribute your own work, build a portfolio, and follow and save pieces from designers you admire.
- Graphic design blogs: Creative Boom, a UK platform for creatives, compiled a list of the top 50 graphic design blogs. But you don’t have to just follow their list. Doing an online search for “graphic design blogs” can give you more results.
- Social media: Many artists create professional social profiles to promote their work. Use sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram to look for profiles and track hashtags related to your industry or design areas for more inspiration.
- Internet searches: A Google Images search for graphic design ideas with the right keywords provides a wealth of ideas.
3. Inspiring Individuals and Groups
People in artistic fields like to share their work both in-person and online. Browsing what they consider their best pieces can help spark your own inspiration. Look at sources like:
- CopyPress and agency websites: Marketing and graphic design companies often provide samples of their work on their websites. CopyPress clients can take advantage of our infographics and custom illustrations, or browse our samples to get ideas for other projects.
- Designer portfolios: Search “graphic designer portfolio” on Google to access work that helps freelancers attract clients. Portfolios provide work for a variety of clients, industries, and mediums.
- Your own work: Review old projects you’ve worked on and remember what inspired each piece the first time. Could you return to any of those sources for more inspiration or incorporate elements from a past project into a new one?
Another unlikely source of graphic design inspiration is the CopyPress weekly email newsletter. By joining our mailing list below, you can get information not just about where to get inspiration for your next graphic design project, but answers to your biggest content marketing questions.
“CopyPress gives us the ability to work with more dealership groups. We are able to provide unique and fresh content for an ever growing customer base. We know that when we need an influx of content to keep our clients ahead of the game in the automotive landscape, CopyPress can handle these requests with ease.”
Kevin Doory
Director of SEO at Auto Revo
CopyPress writer
More from the author:
