If you’ve read my bio you know I love design. Though I’ve been trained in design, I do believe everyone can learn the basic principles of design and apply them to their brand. Even if you decide to hire a graphic and/or web designer to create your brand, you still should have a fundamental understanding what makes a design effective.

The three things I’d like you to take away from this guide is typography, color and following a grid are the basics of good design. Throw in some amazing content that tells an effective story and voila!

Ok, it might not be that simple, but by browsing some of my favorite inspirational websites you’ll start to pickup the elements that help create an effective design. Remember less is more when you’re first starting out.

Other tips to keep in mind are don’t use low resolution images, make sure your fonts are readable (size and font style), and watch your spacing and alignment. Want someone to critique your design? Send me an email.

Affiliate Links: This page does contain affiliate links. Know that I only recommend the best and when you use my links it helps the website at no cost to you (usually they come with perks). Thanks for your support!

Color Pickers

There are a TON of color palette generators. These are just a few of my favorite. Some will also give you palette composition options like analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound and shades.

Adobe Color Wheel // Website

Has all of the color composition options.

Colordot // Website (Free) + App (Fee)

It’s similar to Colorcode where you move the mouse around to choose a color, but the interface differs after that. It doesn’t have the different composition options.

ColorHunt // Website

Love the tones the community picks ever day.

Colourcode // Website

The interface for Colourcode is unique. You move your mouse around to discover a color and then click. From there you can do all kind of stuff. It also let’s you download your palettes.

Palettr // Website

This site allows you to type in a theme or place and it will give you palettes that capture it.

Inspiration

Behance // Website + App

Want to see some amazing design, check out Behance. Creatives from all over the world post their work. I recently added some of my work their. Get inspired!

Dribble // Website

Similar to Behance, it’s another great site to get inspired and see good design. It has an additional feature, color palettes of the projects. You can click on one of the colors to see other projects that also use that tone. When you hover over the colors it also gives you the hex code.

Pinterest // Website + App

My addiction to Pinterest is serious. I start all searches for inspiration there. If you go to my page you’ll see I have a little bit of everything. What you don’t see are my 6 secret boards that I use as vision boards.

Software

Adobe Creative Cloud // Desktop + Apps // Fee

The Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of desktop apps designers, photographers, illustrators, animators and videographers use to create. For example, to build the graphics on this site I used a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

They also have several mobile apps available.

Canva // Website + App // Free

If Adobe is to expensive or complicated or you need to do something quick and on the go consider Canva. You can make graphic design pieces easily. They have several templates and fonts for you to choose from. They also have stock photos and illustration you can purchase.

Another popular software option is Pic Monkey.

Resources

Creative Market // Website

This site is amazing. It has everything for purchase! Fonts, stock photography, illustrations, web themes, design templates, and more.

Etsy // Website + App

Etsy isn’t just for buying home decorations and kid toys. They also sell styled stock photography, design templates, fonts and more. If you’re looking for something, just put it in the search. You never know what you might discover.

Type

Check out the resource section (above) to find other places to find fonts. I mainly use premium fonts because they tend to be built better; however, depending on your project and budget free fonts might work just fine.

Font Squirrel // Website

This site features several FREE fonts.

Free Typography // Website

Did someone say FREE. This site searches the internet for the best free fonts.

MyFonts // Website

You can find premium fonts on this site. Most of my graphics use premium fonts.

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Design Resource Guide on NacheSnow.com