If you were to calculate the amount of minutes, hours, days and weeks that designers spend scrolling and searching the web for inspiration, the final sum is bound to dazzle you. So much of the exploration, research and early stages of any design project is dependent on time spent elsewhere: looking for those specific unknown findings that will spark your imagination and will feel like the treasure hunt for the perfect inspiration is finally solved and done. That’s when you’re ready to move on to the next phase and let the design materialize and take shape.
With such a big chunk of our time being dedicated to online searching and digging, you’d think we’d know where to look by now. But the reality is that more often than not—as is only natural—we are drawn to the same places. And the same places, websites, links, IG feeds - will lead us in the same path.
To inject some newness into your existing inspiration library, we’re here with a list of 5 online destinations that might be able to shake things up a bit and perhaps offer a new bookmark-worthy link.
1 / Collected
Collected is a web design gallery which displays only eight sites from a pool of thousands, shuffled on every visit. So whether you’re visiting daily or just hitting the refresh button on repeat, you’ll be offered a fresh crop each time. The sites are collected by Jonas Pelzer - a Berlin-based designer and developer with a prolific portfolio of works. He collects the sites via his are.na channel - which is a recommended resource for web-design inspiration in and of itself.
2 / Site of Sites
A relatively new publication, Site of Sites is a growing resource for the best in web design. The frequently updated library consists of a cross-platform, cross-industry and cross-trend library that aims to capture the essence of web design as it is today, while providing a glimpse and insights into its future. One of the site’s biggest advantages is that it’s not only a store-front type of directory with a single screenshot and link for each website; it actually offers a more in-depth look into each featured site - what’s it about, what makes it special, its creators and platform that was used, and much more. It also has a Collections filtering option which offers a more trend-led, visual way of searching for specific designs.
3 / Load More
What sets Load More apart from the rest of the sites on this list, is its Mobile-First focus on web-design. We all know the majority of website views are done through mobile devices (recent statistic figures are talking about between 70-80%), so how come all web-design inspiration websites are showing us desktop views? Load More is here to fix that, showcasing distinctive websites for smartphones. Through this archive, they hope to encourage digital designers to take full advantage of the mobile phone’s interface and functionality, and hope to generate conversation on mobile-first design within the digital communities.
4 / OMG LORD
Gabby Lord is a NYC-based designer and founder of Super Keen, and OMGLORD is her very own curated directory and newsletter where she shares thoughts on design, creativity, and handy resources. The online version is formatted as a directory arranged by topics you can browse, and includes links to things that “make me say OMG”, as she explains on the site. “It’s a pretty broad range of topics but always through a common lens of design and creative thinking, shared purely because I think they are cool, interesting or helpful”. The web directory is updated sporadically, whereas if you subscribe to the newsletter you’ll be sent new links weekly.
5 / Fuse
‘Interesting Internet’ is how Fuse describes what they collect on their site. In a world where we predominantly get all our updates and content from social media, Fuse aims to provide an easy place to discover original content from its source. They update the site weekly with new links, and have guest curators to add to the variety on offer.
