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If your current go-to for finding branding inspiration is a Google image search, you're in the right place. While you may find some good examples on Google, you're likely to get inundated with all kinds of random images from questionable sources. A better way to find inspiration is to go to a curated website that's catered to the design community.
In this post, we're sharing the top nine websites to turn to for brand identity design inspiration. These sites all feature work from experienced, professional designers. Plus, they're well established platforms that have an endless supply of inspiration. Be sure to bookmark your favorites for easy access!
Behance is Adobe's platform for showcasing and discovering creative work. It's included with the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, which means anyone with a subscription can publish their work on Behance. Projects that get the most likes are favored by the algorithm and more likely to get seen. In addition, you can follow your favorite designers to keep up with their latest work.
Huge community and selection
Adobe is the gold standard for design software--many of the world's top designers use their products and showcase their work on Behance. And given the large number of users, you can find branding inspiration within any style and industry.
View full branding case studies
Unlike most of the other sites on this list, Behance allows you to upload multiple images to a single project. This is great for displaying a full brand identity design that includes multiple components, such as logo variations, typography, patterns, stationery, merch, packaging, and more. Click here for an example.
If you're a designer, you're no doubt familiar with Dribbble. If not, Dribbble is an invitation-only platform for showcasing design work and hiring designers. In addition to branding, Dribbble includes categories for animation, web design, illustration, mobile, print, product design, and typography.
Community-centric
Dribbble's mission is twofold: to share inspiration and to help designers get hired. With its enormous community, there's no shortage of branding inspiration to be found on Dribbble. And because Dribbble is invite-only, the standards are a little higher compared to platforms like Pinterest or Instagram, where anyone can create an account and publish their work.
BP&O is a blog created by Richard Baird that shares curated design inspiration, primarily branding, logos, and packaging. Baird, a designer himself, features only high-quality, inspiration-worthy designs.
Thoughtful design critiques
BP&O goes beyond just sharing beautiful images. Every post includes context behind the work and thoughtful commentary. If you enjoy reading about good design, not just viewing it, BP&O is a great source of inspiration for you.
Designspiration offers a Pinterest-esque scrolling feed of design and photography inspiration. Simply search for "branding" to view an endless feed of branding inspiration for your work. Other terms to try include "brand identity" and "logo design."
Scrolling design feed
Designspiration is great if you're not really sure what you're looking for and want to browse through lots of designs until something catches your eye. This format is handy in the early stages of a design project, or if you're simply looking for general inspiration. Create an account to save designs to collections, which are akin to Pinterest's boards. And if you are looking for something specific, you can always use the search bar.
P.S. Interested in learning more about branding? Click here to check out the branding playlist on the Flux YouTube channel.
Pinterest is a wonderful source for any kind of inspiration, including branding and design. Due to its popularity, it's important to use it intentionally and curate only the best of the best work on the platform. In other words, you may need to wade through some mediocre work in your search for brand design inspiration. However, the more you curate your feed, the better the algorithm gets at sharing relevant images.
Pinterest boards
Pinterest has mastered the art of curation. You can create as many boards as you like and categorize them by style, industry, medium, color, or whatever is most helpful for you. Personally, I have boards dedicated to brand design, logo design, web design, and so on (you can check out my boards here). This helps me find relevant inspiration quickly. Another good way to use Pinterest is to create a board for each client, which can function as a shareable and collaborative mood board for their brand.
Endless branding inspiration
Millions of pins are published on Pinterest every single day. And since it's a visual platform, it's popular among designers, which means there's an abundant supply of fresh design inspiration shared daily.
Mindsparkle Mag is an online magazine and global community platform for designers. The website features a curated selection of design inspiration in fields ranging from video to graphic design to architecture and everything in between. Founded in 2011, Mindsparkle Mag offers a wealth of top notch branding inspiration. Give them a follow on Pinterest or Instagram for daily inspiration.
Curated work
The Mindsparkle Mag team is very intentional about the work they feature on their platform. They showcase only the most beautiful and inspiring designs from both seasoned creatives and talented newcomers.
Collections
Looking for something specific? Head to the Collections page to browse inspirational websites by category. Although the Collections currently highlight web design inspiration, it's a great place to browse design work by style or industry, such as luxury or real estate.
Although Instagram is shifting its focus from images to videos, it's still a great platform to find quality branding inspiration. With a staggering one billion users, it's no surprise that many top designers are using Instagram to showcase their portfolio work. As with Pinterest, the best way to utilize Instagram for inspiration is to curate your feed by following top designers and design accounts.
Hashtags
Instagram uses hashtags to help people search for content relevant to their interests. Anything you're looking for, you can find on Instagram, and that includes branding inspiration. Here are a few hashtags you can start with:
Follow your favorite designers
Instagram is a social network, and one of its best features is the ability to follow other users. Simply follow your favorite designers and design accounts to get daily design inspiration in your feed.
Engage while you browse
Branding inspiration aside, Instagram is also a great place to network and form relationships with other creatives. I don't post consistently on Instagram, however I've booked multiple clients directly through connections I made on the platform, and you can too.
P.S. Don't forget to follow @ransegall on Instagram for informative and inspiring content on design and freelancing.
What does typography have to do with branding inspiration? Almost everything! Typography selection and usage makes all the difference in branding, graphic design, and web design. And one of the best resources available for all things typography is Typewolf. Founded in 2013 by Jeremiah Shoaf, Typewolf curates fonts, lookbooks, and educational resources for designers.
Save time
Ever spend hours at a time browsing different font foundries to find just the right font for a brand and then another few hours finding a complementary font to pair it with? This part of the branding process is unavoidable for designers, however a resource like Typewolf can cut down on time significantly. Browse the curated collection of fonts featured on the site, or take it a step further and purchase one or all of the available lookbooks.
Click here to learn more about the importance of typography in graphic design.
Our last recommendation for branding inspiration on this list is not technically a website (oops). Instead, we recommend following your favorite designers and agencies. You can bookmark their website or follow them on any of the design sharing platforms mentioned above. They'll appreciate the traffic and engagement, and in turn, you'll receive a ready supply of inspiration. Just be careful not to get too fixated on a single designer's style and influence!
Here are some brand designers we recommend following for inspiration:
Although the above designers are all fantastic, this list is just a miniscule tip of the iceberg. We encourage you to explore and discover other brand designers that inspire you.
P.S. Looking for web design inspiration? Head this way to one of our most popular articles, and if you're looking for photo enhancement services be sure to check FixThePhoto.
If you're interested in learning how to become a better brand designer, head on over to Flux's YouTube channel. Flux shares weekly design critiques, tutorials, tips, and more. For starters, check out our video below on how Matt created a complete brand identity design system.
Stay tuned for more branding content to come here on the blog and on YouTube!
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