I had someone ask me recently where I find my inspiration for design and I found it to be a hard question to answer, not only because they were another designer who I didn’t know that I wanted to share the goods with but also because I find inspiration in so many places but I thought I would share a few that I think would be useful to companies and individuals looking to get ideas for their branding or company.

Friends of Type is one of my favorite places to get inspiration for custom typography, logo and branding design. Your typography can make or break a design and looking at examples of all the different type layouts on this site can strike up a million ideas for alignment, structure and even colors. Don’t steal ideas though, cause that ain’t cool.

One of the most common places I get inspiration from is interior and architectural design. Having clean structure is vital in print and web design. Good interior design tends to showcase great example’s of color palettes and could easily provide some idea’s for color options for branding idea’s. Architecture imagery can provide great examples of symmetry, patterns, and even color palettes as well. Seeking inspiration in places other than design magazines or books will most often lead to a more creative concept and could very well give you that different look that you are searching for.

Lastly I find inspiration in my other passions and daily activities, one of which is cooking. Food imagery is another example of a good source for color palettes. Watching cooking shows, reading magazines, recipe books and even being served food at a restaurant can strike up some inspiration.

Inspiration can be found in the most common places that you wouldn’t think to look. It never hurts to come in with some idea’s and a starting point with simple thing’s like color or type setting when starting to brand your company. We want all our idea’s to be as original and creative as possible when it comes to branding our clients and we all do thing’s differently but we do our best to seek out new inspiration and design processes to be the best.