Did your muses sneak out the back-door without even leaving a message on the bathroom mirror? Didn’t you just have this wonderful idea for this next web project? No? I thought so. When the only thing running properly is your nose and the only sparks flying burn your skin, it is high time you visited Niice.co. This new search engine is here to serve you inspiration in packages tailored to your needs.

Inspiration sparks Creativity, a Designer’s most important Resource

Designers are always on the look-out for inspiration. Creativity is a shy companion. If it encounters the slightest disturbances it leaves without a known return date. And disturbances are quite a few. Tight deadlines, too many projects in too little time, you name it. Creative block, archenemy of any creative worker out there, lurks behind the nearest corner and waits for a chance to get a hold of you. One of the top tips against creative block is simple: Build a huge collection of bookmarks of design-related resources and keep it tight to your heart. Whenever you feel like your head will not voluntarily come up with anything useful, turn to these resources and see what others have come up.

As you are one of our valued readers, you know that with Noupe at your side you git the basics covered already. Inspiration is one of our main topics here in the jungle. We are happy to help you getting your creativity going.

Other services, such as Dribbble are helpful, too. Dribbble as a community-project can even help you by providing feedback on your submitted designs. As designers are more often lone fighters than not, this is a way of getting valuable responses and hints on where to improve, lone wolves usually do not have access to.

Niice.co: Inspiration as Inspiration can

Niice.co, created in Northern Ireland by Chris Armstrong and Pete Hawkins, bundles three relevant and well-known sources of design inspiration under a single intuitive UI. At the time of this writing Niice.co integrates Behance, Dribbble and Designspiration. More sources will become available in the future.

Armstrong and Hawkins saw a desperate need for Niice.co in the fact that you could as well search for images using Google, but without any form of “good taste” filters. We all know what Google searches can come up with, regardless of whether you still need your eyes…

Niice.co resembles Pinterest, though not very closely. Search results are presented as big tiles covering the whole screen. Hovering a result reveals information about the source of this result. Clicking on it takes you to the source without further ado.

You will soon realize the usefulness of Niice.co once you start playing around with it. Search for “packaging” for example and notice the great examples of packaging designs you are given. Search for “logo”. Again, you will not get disappointed. Imagine this tool with even more sources behind it. It might become indispensable rather sooner than later.

Don’t get me wrong. Niice.co is no search engine for design resources, such as Freepik is. Niice.co’s sole purpose is to help you get your creativity going by showing you what others have created in the same field you are working.

Niice.co keeps this promise. Even potentially foul-mouthed search terms such as “poop” produce absolutely pristine results ;-)

“Moodboards” are a work in progress at Niice.co. As far as I understand, these moodboards will give users the possibility to store and share search results based on user’s profiles. This feature reminds me strongly of So.cl, though, keep in mind, I haven’t seen a moodboard yet. I requested an invite to eradicate this stain….

Niice.co got nominated as “Side Project Of The Year 2013” at the Net Awards, run by well-known design magazine .net. Voting has already ended, but results will not be presented before May 31st. I keep my fingers crossed for Niice.co. It’s very niice :)

Related Links