Internet is an interesting space, especially right now. I have spoken about how I wholeheartedly advocate for creating your own physical or image archive of inspiration. And the deeper technology disrupt our lives and work, the more passionate I am about the preservation of visual culture and one’s own reference journey. At the same time I love the internet and there are so many places on here, that one can and should use for creative research, inspiration, a case-study rabbit-hole activity, mood-board building and more. And no, Pinterest is not one of them (sorry). These are more involved, niche, curated, often obscure but deeply human. Here is the first part of my favourite places on the internet. If this newsletter does well, I’m happy to share more. Here we go!
Archival Visual Culture Inspiration
IDEA - curated archive of as they call it “the most super books in recent history”, great resource for research and cover art direction
Scanned Fashion World - resource of scanned magazines, ads and editorial campaigns
NEAL.FUN - this is pure joy, this website let’s you browse Wikipedia via endless feed of image cut-outs. Great for the rabbit-hole activity and visual research.
The People’s Graphic Design Archive - a crowd-sourced virtual archive of graphic design history
Archive PDF - 90s fashion archive curated by global contributors, from runway looks to campaign scans
CASCA Brazil Archive - comprehensive archive of Brazil’s visual culture
Archive Design - graphic design ephemera archive
Blaise Hayward’s collection of vintage tickets - for niche typography and layout design
AIGA Design Archives - archive that dates back to 1996, everything from packaging to covers, good resource for typography, layout and colour reference
Internet Archive Zine - for zine history research
Retro Games Advertising - a Google drive archive of high res gaming advertising campaigns
mat. taste - annotated curation of retro eccentric interior design photographs
Type Hunting - for old school commercial typography references
Library180 - one of the new additions to my list, for those of you who are in New York, new reference library is open to public.
Curated Visual Inspiration
Elizabeth Goodspeed Are.na - goldmine of beautifully curated imagery, organised by themes
The Leo Is All In The Mind - gorgeously curated Tumblr with evolving colour palette
Beau Traps - all time favourite , visual culture “deep cuts”
Lucile Demory - imagery curation focused on architecture , spacial and object design
PRINT.PM - great inspiration for print ephemera
Apartemento Magazine Archive and Kinfolk Magazine Archive - of magazine’s issue covers, gorgeous layout, colour and editorial inspiration
System Magazine Archive - same as above but you can actually view full issues online
DIELINE - for packaging design case studies and references
Thibaut Mathieu - for mood-boarding, gorgeous curation of visuals, from art, film, architecture and photography
5050Collective - great for references and case studies beyond Eurocentrism and Western world
Graphic design , Typography and Layout Inspiration
It’s Nice That Archive - this is not niche, but all time favourite that I’ve been using for years, for case studies, research and artist’s discovery
The East Asian Graphics Archive - gorgeous curation of digital and print ephemera made by creatives, studios, and brands from across East Asia
Grafook - for unique graphic design inspiration
Trend List - for niche graphic design references, curated inspiration since 2011
Another Graphic - great Global curation of niche layout, colour and type references
abduzeedo - for brand and editorial design, case studies and research
The Brand Identity - also not niche, but my favourite resource for branding research and case studies
Graphic Love Design - great for conceptual typography research
Conceptseeker - newsletter on innovation, creative research, references, tools and design news
Type01 - for type news, case study, references
Arabic Design Archive - gorgeous curation, well organised and annotated, great resource for research and illustration study
Graphic Graphic Club - for niche layout inspiration
50watts - growing curation of book-related design and illustration
Illustration Lol - for more illustration inspiration
Film & Video Inspiration
Eyecandy - visual video and motion techniques library, great for referencing
Genery - my go to for high res film clips or stills, subscription based
Steven Hill’s Movie Title Screen Page - for those who as much of a film title fanatic as I am
Few more resources for film stills - Film Vibes - Move-Screencaps - Animation Screencaps -Film Grab
Le Dauphin - beautifully curated stills, often from independent cinema
Random but delightful
Intertapes - a curation of random cassette tapes with a little back story, I love this concept
Silor Moon stills - for the fellow animation appreciators and Sailor moon fans, this resource literally has every single frame from every single episode of every single season
Everywhere Tools - a very cool resource of fun and experimental graphic design , animation and typography tools
The Marginalian - this one is for the soul, beautifully written observations on philosophy, art, design, creativity, life and more; really well annotated and connected so this one is a rabbit hole;
Perfectly Imperfect - the best place on the internet, that feels like an old internet, sign up, let’s be friends!
Ciggies.app - this is just brilliant, beautiful packaging reference resource
Space Type Generator - joyful type generation tool
I hope you find these resources helpful for your next research or a project ! Please let me know your favourite inspiration resource and if you love this type of newsletter?
Edit: Some of you asked how I keep track of my resource library, my answer is I built this Notion “digital Garden database” template that works for me better than any other methods.
Thank you for reading! Have a great weekend M x.
i just want you to know this is the best social preview i’ve ever seen on substack
Incredible list of resources. Thank you!