Hello readers! Guess what? We’ve updated this list for the new year. Check out 50 Design Blogs You Have to Read in 2016.

As designers we find inspiration everywhere. When we’re out and about, in books and magazines, galleries and exhibitions—and, of course, on the internet. But to save you wading through the rough to find the diamonds, we’ve put together 50 of our favourite design blogs that you have to check out in 2015, as chosen by our talented teachers and resourceful students here at Shillington.

Which ones will spark your design vision? Check out our top choices and let us know any others that deserve a mention in the comments below.

Friends of Type

Created by four designers and lovers of lettering, you’ll find fresh and original typographic design and lettering posts updated daily. Sketchbook in style and handcrafted in nature, it’s a font of knowledge and inspiration.

bench.li

A visual catalog of ideas, it’s an uncategorised library of inspiration that you can leaf through whenever the mood takes you.

httpster

A showcase of the hottest in web design, httpster is a perfect place to boost your creativity to see how graphic design skills turn sites from good to great.

SiteInspire

Choosy in its selections, SiteInspire is a collection of the best web design out there, specialising in clean and simple sites. Sometimes, less is definitely more. You can even submit your own design for inclusion.

Typewolf

You know the font you want but you can’t find it? Head to Typewolf, an independent typography resource to make it easy to find the perfect lettering for any project.

Grafik

Super simple to browse, Grafik is home to the “world’s most inspiring graphic design”. Packed with posts and projects from across the globe, it’s brimming with ideas no matter what you’re looking for.

Eye On Design

The blog of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), Eye on Design showcases the best new multidisciplinary work from emerging and established designers across the world.

Design Of The World

An expertly-curated blog from the design team at Josephmark, exploring thoughtful designs around the world. There’s always something to inspire you here.

Mr Cup

Take a sip from this site and you’ll enjoy the sweet taste of inspiration from French graphic designer Fabien Barral, who serves up a selection of his favourite design flavours.

Web Designer Depot

Sharing the latest and greatest findings, tips and techniques for web designers, you’ll learn plenty to help you tackle web projects here, or pick up some expert insights to help you translate your graphic skills to the digital landscape.

Line25

A weekly roundup of the most outstanding web designs and helpful blogs filled with advice and tips, you’ll never struggle with a web project again with the help of Line25.

Web Field Manual

Created by web designers, it’s an ever expanding, curated list of resources that reveals the insider tips for designing experiences and interfaces on the web.

It’s Nice That

Championing creative inspiration, It’s Nice That is a portal for every design sector with a graphic design hub covering everything from typefaces to currency redesigns.

Designspiration

You can browse this selection of high-level design inspiration by keywords or even colour, so if you want to be inspired by blue or a particular phrase, this site can deliver.

This Is Collate

Websites, photography, art and design … it’s all here in one place for you to seek inspiration for your projects. A minimalist design with beautiful wide images makes it a pleasure to explore.

This Is Colossal

Art, design and visual culture come together in this inspirational blog, with weekly posts covering everything from photography and painting to street art. A timely reminder that in the digital age, people are still making incredible work with their bare hands.

Plenty of Colour

Created by Vancouver-based designer Chloe Douglas, this blog is a celebration of her love of colour in all of its glorious forms and a visual journal of what inspires her. Perfect for a colourful pick me up.

Typetoken

A new online magazine devoted to typography, icons and visual language, it features contributions from designers around the globe to inspire and stimulate the senses.

Demilked

An art, photography and design mash-up, Demilked filters out the best of what’s hot around the world.

GoodDesignMakesMeHappy

The title says it all. Capturing the joy she gets from good design, Hannah Dollery wants to share exactly what inspires her. It’s a vast collection too, with well over 1,000 posts all handily categorised.

designclever

Built by aspiring graphic designers Jonathan Ring and Bethany Baker to celebrate talented creatives, you can submit your own work too or just seek out inspiration from others.

Design Everywhere

A daily visual dose of graphic design works from across the world, Design Everywhere is the creative blog of Singapore graphic designer Preston Tham.

AisleOne

A resource from the heart of NYC focusing on typography and graphic design with a touch of minimalism and modernism.

Identity Designed

A beautifully presented showcase of branding projects from designers and studios the world over. It’s the level of detail that really sets this site apart, as each case study really digs deep into the creative process, showing you the different steps taken on the way to a successful project.

The Fox Is Black

Combining the best of art and design, expect to see everything from experimental photography to upcycled furniture, cutesy illustrations to daring music cover art. A great place to discover new talent and get a sense of the wide range of projects to which you can apply your own design talents.

Abduzeedo

A vast resource of visual inspiration covering graphic design, typography, illustration and much more, with a bunch of tutorials to help you brush up on some of your software skills.

Graphic Design Blender

Focused on the skills and practical guidance you need to build a successful career as a designer, offering a wealth of tips for freelancers and plenty of resources to help boost your career prospects.

Gurafiku

Japan has long been a hotbed of design innovation, and this Tumblr shows off the country’s rich heritage in graphics and visuals. Serves up lashings of posters, magazine covers and eye-popping typography.

Brand New

A place to get you talking about corporate logos and brand identities, Brand New offers up opinions on redesigns for largely well-known products and big companies. A lively comment section accompanies each post, while the insights from site editor Armin Vit are a fantastic way to really tune your brain into design thinking.

Design is Kinky

A long-established blog that serves up a seemingly endless and carefully curated selection of graphic design in all its form. Having launched in 1998, it’s got plenty of years of talent spotting behind it.

Nowness

Lose yourself in this vast catalogue of design and art-led videos, using beautifully shot films to really delve deeply into the inspiration behind contemporary culture. Covering a cross-section of design disciplines, with some stunning case studies of visual and product design.

The Great Discontent

Successfully transferring many of the design standards of print publications to its digital platform, The Great Discontent (which now has an accompanying print magazine) is full of wide images, cleverly used typography and exciting page layouts. Published by Brooklyn-based creative studio Wayward Wild, creativity is the focus here, featuring in-depth interviews with creative minds from the worlds of music, poetry, film and art.

MissMoss

A lifestyle blog by South Africa-based graphic designer Diana Moss, Miss Moss is a beautifully curated collection of visually stunning products. A veritable treasure trove of homewares, fashion, photography and—naturally—some exceptional graphic design.

Visuelle

Providing a healthy daily dose of creativity, Visuelle is a regularly updated feed of links to the best new design work plucked from studios and designers around the world and across a range of disciplines.

Print.pm

Despite the rise of digital, you’ll still find plenty of love for print in the design world. And nowhere celebrates it better than Print.pm, a visual supply of great print design examples, from magazine spreads to billboard posters. If you’re looking for ideas for your own layouts then this is a great place to start.

The Inspiration Grid

The name sums this one up pretty well, it’s a grid-like blog that dishes up new examples of creative talent every day. You can also dip in and out to explore different disciplines, with a comprehensive list of design categories, covering logo design, branding, illustration, typography, print design and much more.

FormFiftyFive

Curated by a team of more than 30 designers from the UK and further afield, FormFiftyFive has now been going strong for 10 years, delivering shining examples of creative work from the most exciting design talent around the world. A mixture of links, image galleries and work examples, alongside more in-depth features and interviews.

A Good Book

Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover? This unique project, originally launched through Twitter in 2011, is a visual diary of books, celebrating the aesthetic qualities of each and every one submitted.

I Love Ligatures

Celebrating the seemingly simple but often unheralded art of typographic ligatures, this vast Tumblr stream features endless well-chosen examples. The is one for type enthusiasts, or those just looking to add a little creative flourish to their designs.

99u

A familiar resource for many designers, 99u is delivered by the creative industry behemoth that is Behance, and offers up a variety of valuable tips on productivity, creativity and carving out a successful career. From exercises to lessen the impact of sitting at a desk, to tips on maximising your time, 99u covers a wealth of issues that affect the reality of life as a designer.

CSS Tricks

Want to sharpen up your digital skills so you can transfer your graphic design chops to the web? Well, becoming savvy with CSS should be high on your list of priorities. You won’t be surprised to hear that this site if full to the brim with tips on the essential style sheet language, but it also offers wider ranging advice and updates on the latest developments in other areas of web design.

Smashing Magazine

Another established but indispensable resource, Smashing Magazine is a high quality collection of up-to-date articles on the latest trends in design, graphics, UX, coding, web and mobile. In-depth tutorials are complemented by some inspiring work examples.

A List Apart

Don’t be put off by the somewhat intimidating layout, A List Apart means business. It’s the quality and depth of the articles that really sets this site apart, with 1,500 word features on anything that affects web design professionals. And if you’re short on time (or attention span), head to the blog section for quicker updates and the stories that are getting people talking.

Betterment

Pitched as a blog “for people who care about design”, Betterment is very much tuned into a user-centred approach. Design isn’t just about making things look good, it’s about crafting useful products, creating pleasant and meaningful user experiences and helping businesses to succeed—this is the philosophy that is tuned into everything on this site, from the minds behind acclaimed digital agency Digital Telepathy.

Awwwards

Celebrating creativity and innovation on the internet, Awwwards is updated every day with fresh examples of brand new websites, making it a fantastic place to keep up with the latest trends in digital design. You can also submit your own projects for critique (for a fee) and even browse for jobs.

Mirador

Benoit Berger and Nathalie Kapagiannidi from Parisian graphic design studio Say What, generously share their own image hunting work in the form of the beautifully presented Mirador blog.

Swissmiss

It started as way of keeping track of her favourite finds on the web. It’s turned into an exceedingly popular design blog by Swiss-born, NYC-based designer Tina Eisenberg—the creative mind behind awesome products such as Tattly and beautiful to-do app TeuxDeux. As you’d expect, her feed of designer-friendly links, images and videos is equally high quality, but with plenty of fun thrown in too.

Quipsologies

A plentiful supply of links showcasing the latest and greatest design projects, events and news that the internet has to offer. Run by the mighty graphic design enterprise Under Consideration, Quipsologies is beautifully presented too and outlines the carefully chosen typography used throughout the site.

The Dieline

A rare treat in that it’s a visual inspiration site dedicated to the oft-neglected discipline of packaging design. What began as the personal blog of designer Andrew Gibbs has grown into one of the most popular resources for the package design community, encompassing an awards competition, directory, job listings, conferences and more.

24 Ways

At the bottom of this list not for its lack of quality—but because it’s only updated for one month of every year. This virtual advent calendar adds 24 new posts on the latest developments in web design every December. But if you can’t wait that long then you can still browse the archive going back 10 years.

Thanks to Shillington teacher Frances Gray for her handcrafted image!