Several weeks ago during AAF Columbus’ event ‘A Night For Creatives’ David Sonderman, EVP, Executive Creative Director at GSW, mentioned the importance of finding creative inspiration from around the globe. In the closing Q&A session a student asked him for some ideas on where they could find creative work from around the world. David quickly named a couple sources including viewing the Cannes Lions award winners. That brief exchange prompted me to start thinking about the list of sources that I’ve collected and leaned on for inspiration over the years.
Occasionally NSFW but always inspiring—my list of sources for creative inspiration has no boundaries. I follow great work created around the world regardless of genre, style or medium. Over time I’ve significantly grown this list from an initial handful of RSS feeds to a much larger cross section of web and social media platforms. While not my full list of sites and sources, this overview should get you started building your own inspiration list of great work from around the world.
- Explore Vine, Tumblr, and Instagram to find unique perspectives
- Don’t rely on visually inspiring sites alone, search SoundCloud for music that no one else in your circles has heard of before
- Follow internet rabbit trails. Once you find a source that you like, Google “Sites like…” to find out if there are tangential sources available.
- Stray outside of your genre. Look at everything from fashion design to graffiti
- You can find creative inspiration everywhere
And now, for some sweet, sweet creative inspiration:
- Beautiful Decay http://beautifuldecay.com
- Creative Review http://www.creativereview.co.uk
- Motionographer http://motionographer.com
- Ads of the World http://adsoftheworld.com
- Behance https://www.behance.net
- Agency Spy http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/
- Brand Republic http://www.brandrepublic.com
- Juxtapoz http://www.juxtapoz.com
- Arkitip http://arkitip.com
- Swiss Miss http://www.swiss-miss.com
- Ping Mag http://pingmag.jp
- Core77 http://www.core77.com
- Art of the Title http://www.artofthetitle.com
- Meathaüs http://meathaus.com