Like many designers, I gain lots of inspiration (large volumes of it, in fact) by going online and looking at the work of others. There are plenty of websites set up to showcase design, but I’m finding that one of the nicest ways to come across great work is through twitter.
When I joined twitter, I imagined I would use it primarily to talk with people I already know: friends, and designers I’ve come to know via blogs. Then, I started visiting links tweeted (and retweeted) by others … and looking at the work of the people who follow me on twitter. I really enjoy discovering fantastic designers, artists and bloggers this way. Here are some of the people I’ve encountered (and whom I now follow) thanks to twitter:
scullyb works for Ballas Creative, a design and branding firm in Denver, Colorado. I really like their one-page site and the work displayed in their portfolio.
Jo Klima is an Australian graphic designer working under the business name The Darling Tree. Her website is designed with charming emblems of folk art; visit to check out a range of beautiful patterns available for download.
Pinch is a design company in Portland, Oregon, with a beautifully laid out website, great portfolio and an interesting blog. What more could you ask for?
Lawrence Anderson first grabbed my attention with the great logos he’s been designing; then I caught a very useful blog post he’d written on Flash microsites.
Josh is also based in Portland, Oregon, and has an impressive body of design work, starting with his own website.
Benek Lisefski lives in Auckland, New Zealand (one of my favourite cities). He designs and builds beautiful websites.
Brian Hoff started his blog The Design Cubicle late in 2008 and quickly gained an impressive following due to some very useful and thought-provoking articles on design, freelancing and social media.
Janko Jovanovic (aka Janko at Warp Speed) has a nice looking blog with some great tutorials to stretch the functionality of your website(s).
David Billings creates fun illustrations and animations for kids, and his website indicates he’s also based in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon (I’m sensing a trend here …).
Another great illustrator on my twitter follow list is Matti Kemppainen, from Finland. Matti’s website says he also works in 2D animation and game art. I love his take on the Grim Reaper.
Josh Couts is a Colorado-based photographer, with a portfolio of stunning landscape and nature photography.
Chris Taylor creates some great illustrations and designs under the name Seraphim Collective.
Athena Emily has created some beautiful wallpaper designs, which can be viewed on her blog. Living half the year in the UK and the other half in Hong Kong (as her website says), she really is mobile!
Cameron Senior (aka damnpenguins on twitter) is a Sydney-based web developer with a beautifully designed website and some useful CMS tips on his blog.
UK designer John O’Nolan has a great website and a blog which outlines (among other things) his experiences in establishing his own business.
Art Webb is the creator of tutsearch, which aggregates digital art tutorials from a wide range of sources across the web.
Antonea Nabors writes in her VelvetAnt blog about design and how it is applied in the real world.
Alex Charchar is a designer based in Queensland, Australia. I really like Alex’s blog because of the sense of character, including the questioning of some design conventions, that’s apparent in the writing.
This group is just a sample: I follow a lot of people on twitter, including many very talented designers, illustrators and bloggers whom I’ve encountered and in some cases have come to know quite well through avenues other than twitter. Perhaps that will be the subject for a future post.
Have you found twitter to be a good source of inspiration? In what way? I’d also be interested to hear of other designers you may have found this way.
Hi Tracey,
When Twitter first came on the scene, I took it as just another social media fad, but it’s certainly gone mainstream alright, and I hear it mentioned on TV shows quite a lot.
In a way, it’s replaced my del.icio.us account, as I end up ‘tweeting’ about links of interest, rather than bookmarking them. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but del.icio.us never brought any traffic to my website, and Twitter does.
I enjoy taking a quick break from work to see what others are talking about. Those little ‘real-life’ insights show another side of people you don’t often get through normal blog posts.
David Airey’s last blog post … One Show logo design finalists
Well thank you very much for the mention, I greatly appreciate it!
I’ve only been using Twitter a little while but am finding it to be a great part of my routine.. it’s made it easier to develop a connection with a few blogging friends, meet new ones and discover content I might not otherwise find.. I still love my feeds for inspiration and content, but twitter is sort of like the strawberry on the cake — I always go for it first ;)
Thanks for the mention.
Thanks so much for the inclusion Tracey! I was just having a discussion with a fellow coworker about how much my work has improved since my interactions with other talented designers on Twitter. Also the Design Cubicle wouldn’t be what it is today without Twitter and the amazing people who supported (and retweeted) my articles.
Tracey–
You have an extremely nice blog and website. It is amazing how twitter can fetch links or inspiration as you said in this article. After all, that is how I found you and this site. Tweet on!!
Tracey,
Thanks so much for the reference! I really apprecaite it :)
I was right up there with you when I started using Twitter. I got an invite from a friend so I joined and couldn’t out what the point of it was! I noticed many design blogs I was reading had links to twitter accounts and I started following them.
Now I really only use Twitter as a tool to network with other designers and creatives. It is such a useful tool for designers to find information and inspiration as long as you learn how to use it right and follow the right people. Twitter is somewhat like an automatic RSS update. I also see it as a casual forum for designers. As David said, Twitter brings in quite a bit of traffic to my site, which in return gives me new readers. It is a very powerful tool!
Thanks for a great article and some excellent follows. It’s only really in recent weeks that I’ve started to feel like I’m utilizing Twitter properly as a networking and resource tool.
One thing I appreciate in your article is a little background on your recommended follows. I’ve seen a lot of articles that are just plain lists of “these are good people” and the same thing with #followfriday, but that often just seems like info overload without any real way of discriminating. A list like this with background and information is far more useful.
Hi Tracey, thanks so much for the mention :) Twitter is great isn’t it? You forgot @Japh though, he’s in Tasmania too!
Thanks for mentioning me, John! And thanks for following me now Tracey :)
Bookmarking this post by the way, so I can come back and start following anyone on here I’ve missed as soon as I get a moment!
Oops, forgot to say, there are a number of Tasmanian freelance or small business designers and developers… we should arrange some kind of regular get together!
I couldn’t agree with you more Tracey. When you get past some of the inane chatter, Twitter is an absolute minefield of information and like yourself I’ve come across loads of great sites that I would never have found otherwise.
Hello Tracey,
Thank you for the mention amongst some of your favorite Tweeps. I’m very pleased that you enjoy my photographic art.
I just wanted to let you know (in case you want to update your links) that I have created a Twitter account @waywardphoto strictly for photography purposes and my SmugMug account has been changed to waywardwanderings.smugmug.com, easily reachable through my website at http://www.waywardwanderings.com
Cheers
Hi Tracy,
I just googled my name and found this post. I want to thank you for the mention. I’m glad that I can inspire someone with my work. Hit me up anytime you need advice or a collab. :)