Helpful things other creative folks might find useful too.  

ASSOCIATIONS

American Institute of Graphic Arts

The Professional Association for Design.
Not only do they offer continued education on the industry, they offer a number of references for business standards and practice.

West Michigan AIGA Chapter

A great we to connect with the West Michigan Graphic Design community. The chapter hosts workshops, lectures, and fun events.

Detroit AIGA Chapter

A great we to connect with the Eastern side of Michigan's Graphic Design community.

American Advertising Federation

An organization that celebrates and educates in all areas of advertising.

Graphic Artists Guild Test

An insanely valuable organization for any graphic artist. I reference their book all the time when in need of help on a contract.

CHOPS

AdobeMAX

An annual conference filled with workshops, lectures, and fun.

Adobe Education Exchange

Free teaching resources and professional learning for educators.

Briefbox

Practice briefs, design challenges & a global community of 15k creatives.

Hoodzpah's Business Course

A really great course that covers the essentials for freelancers but really any creative professional.

SkillShare

Skillshare is an online learning platform with thousands of creative courses and classes taught by experts to help you learn new skills.

Type At Cooper

The Continuing Education Department of The Cooper Union offers a Postgraduate Certificate in Typeface Design.

Youtube

Duh right? But just making a point that I am constantly googling how to do a very specific technique for a job. The internet CAN be a great if you choose wisely.

FILMS

Helvetica

2007 American independent feature-length documentary film about typography and graphic design, centered on the eponymous typeface.

Graphic Means

A History of Graphic Design Production.

Art & Copy

A film about advertising and inspiration.

Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight

Profiles Milton Glaser, America's foremost graphic designer: designer of the iconic "I [heart] N.Y." logo, teacher, and humanitarian.

The Persuaders

Takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar “persuasion industries” of advertising and public relations.

Merchants of Cool

Journeys into the world of the marketers of popular culture to teenagers.

Greatest Movie Ever Sold

2011 documentary film about product placement, marketing and advertising directed by Morgan Spurlock.

Design is One

A documentary on Massimo and Lella Vignelli, two of the world's most influential designers.

Design & Thinking

Is a documentary exploring the idea of "design thinking.

Objectified

A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Urbanized

A feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster

Is a feature-length documentary highlighting the career of poster artist Drew Struzan.

Eames: The Architect & the Painter

Is the first film since their death dedicated to these creative geniuses and their work.

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film

Irreplaceable knowledge of the historic craft is in danger of being lost as its caretakers age.

Linotype: The Film

The Film is a feature-length documentary film centered around the Linotype typecasting machine invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886.

Abstract: The Art of Design

Step inside the minds of the most innovative designers in a variety of disciplines and learn how design impacts every aspect of life.

ART RESIDENCIES

Arts in National Parks

Artists have created art in national parks since the late 19th century when famed Hudson River School painters captured the majestic views of our nation's western parks. Today, the sights and sounds in national parks continue to inspire artists in more than 50 residency programs across the country.

OX-BOW

Longform, piloted in 2021, is an in-person hybrid residency workshop model, in which artists can focus on their work while also developing new skills.

TOOLS

Adobe Illustrator

An essential for anything vector.

Adobe Photoshop

An essential for anything pixel.

Adobe InDesign

An essential for any multipage design.

Adobe After Effects

An essential for anything animated.

Adobe Fresco

Adobe's answer to ProCreate. I use Fresco on my IPad but I also love sketching in Photoshop and Illustrator on my IPad.

Adobe Lightroom

Photoshop for Photographers. Lightroom is great for subtle photo edits and organization.

ProCreate

A go to illustration tablet tool.

Glyphs

A great font creation software.

Webflow

A great platform to build fully customizable websites. This site is built using Webflow.

Affinity

A really great alternative to Adobe Software that is not subscription based. They have their version of Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.

Dropbox

What I use to organize and backup client work.

Box

A great platform I use to collaborate with clients on large projects.

CONTENT

Adobe Fonts

Free fonts with your Adobe Subscription.

Brandon Nickerson Studio

Awesome handmade fonts.

MyFonts

A great resource for purchasing fonts for your next project.

Creative Market

One place I go to purchase photography, brushes, textures, etc.

Hoodzpah Shop

Fonts, templates, courses, oh my.

Fonts In Use

An independent archive of typography.

Retro Supply Company

Design Tools Will Bring Those Nostalgic Touches To Your Digital Artwork.

Taylor Penton Fonts

Another place for great hand made fonts.

True Grit Texture Supply

Pro-quality brushes, textures and effects for your favorite graphic apps.

Unsplash

Beautiful, free images and photos that you can download and use for any project. Better than any royalty free or stock photos.

Pexels

Free stock photos & videos you can use everywhere. Browse millions of high-quality royalty free stock images & copyright free pictures.

Pixabay

Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music.

Morguefile

Morguefile contains free high resolution digital stock photographs and reference images.

Wetransfer

A simple way to send your large files.

PRINTING

Bonfire

Upload your artwork & choose products to print on.

Boxcar Press

Where to go to get letterpress plates made.

Delicious Design League

Where I go to get screen prints made.

French Paper

An awesome resource for fun papers.

Freshly Squeezed

A Grand Rapids Michigan shop that does great letterpress printing.

HHHI

Awesome business card printing with an array of unique printing options.

Inkerlinker

A resource created to help find printers.

Inprint

Sell art prints and more.

Mama's Sauce

One place I go to get letterpress done.

Moo

Quality printing with options like foil, raised inks, etc at an affordable price.

St Armand Paper Makers

Amazing high quality papers.

Sticker App

Make your own custom stickers with tons of die cut and printing options.

Sticker Mule

Another place to have custom sickers printed.

WEB

A List Apart

Explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Awwwards

Online courses, Interactive Live Sessions, and Workshops for web designers and developers.

Codecademy

An online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages.

Don't Fear the Internet

A resource to help demystify html and css coding.

Method & Craft

an online publication of design techniques and tips from some of the industry's top designers.

Smashing Magazine

A website and eBook publisher that offers editorial content and professional resources for web developers and web designers.

Siteinspire

A showcase of the best web design inspiration, featuring over 7000 websites and profiles of the digital agencies, designers and developers who made them.

Treehouse

An online technology school that offers beginner to advanced courses in web design, web development, mobile development and game development.

Websitesetup

is the one-stop shop if you want to build a website, an online store, or launch a blog.

INSPIRATION

AIGA Eye On Design

AIGA Eye on Design covers the world’s most exciting designers—and the issues they care about.

Art of the Menu

Restaurant menu design inspiration.

Behance

Showcase and discover the latest work from top online portfolios by creative professionals across industries.

Booooooom

A blog about Art, Design, Film, Music, Photography, Daily Junk and Projects.

Brand New

Showcasing beautiful logo work, an Under Consideration site.

Brandingstyleguides

A huge branding guidelines archive.

Colossal

A blog about art and visual ingenuity.

Communication Arts

Communication Arts magazine is a journal for all visual communications.

Design Matters

Insightful conversations with designers and creatives of all types by Debbie Millman.

Design Milk

Design Milk is dedicated to modern design in areas like Technology, Architecture, Art, Interior Design.

Design Observer

A website devoted to a range of design topics including graphic design, social innovation, urbanism, popular culture, and criticism.

The Dieline

Packaging design inspiration

Dribble

Where designers gain inspiration, feedback, community, and jobs and is your best resource to discover and connect with designers worldwide.

Fast Company

A news site with a focus on business and design.

Its Nice That

It’s Nice That believes passionately that creative inspiration is for everyone.

Juxtapoz

An art and culture magazine with the mission of connecting modern genres like psychedelic and hot rod art, graffiti, street art, and illustration to the context of broader more historically recognized genres of art like Pop, assemblage, old master painting, and conceptual art.

TED Talks: Design

In these TED Talks, some of the world's greatest designers share their creative process.

99u

A resource and event series to help creatives build incredible careers, supercharge their work, and make their ideas happen.

TYPE INSPIRATION

Art of the Title

A behind the scenes look at contemporary
movie title design

Chromeography

Real fonts spotted in the wild plus articles and commentary by some very nerdy folks

Fonts In Use

A huge catalog of awesome type on cars!

The Movie Title Stills Collection

A collection containing hundreds of movie title design stills.

I Love Typography

ILT combines the world’s most loved typography blog with a great new place to buy fonts from your favorite indie foundries.

Letterform Archive

An amazing library of type, lettering, and calligraphy related books, posters, and ephemera in San Francisco.

MyFonts’s Newsletters

A great way to stay up to date with type trends.

Thinking with Type

The online version of Ellen Lupton's classic text.

Type@Cooper

Continuing education workshops and full courses in type design, lettering, and calligraphy. Locations in San Francisco and New York.

TypeDecon

A comprehensive guide to the anatomy of type.

Type Directors Club

Promoting excellence in typography for over 65 years. The TDC offers excellent type related events, educational workshops, and a beautiful annual.

TypeKit Practice

Lessons on best typography practices for the web by the team at TypeKit.

Typographica

A blog of type reviews, books and commentary.

NETWORKING

Closer & Closer Co

Closer&Closer is an Artist Representation Agency based in Los Angeles, California

Contra

Discover and hire top-notch talent, manage payments, contracts, and projects, and work the way you want.

Dribble

Find Top Designers & Creative Professionals on Dribbble. We are where designers gain inspiration, feedback, community, and jobs.

Faire

Hundreds of thousands of retailers are buying wholesale products online with Faire.

Link Tree

An easy way to create links to goods for sale on social media.

Jacky Winter

The Jacky Winter Group represents the best commercial talent in the contemporary applied arts.

Patreon

Exclusive oracle cards delivered to your mailbox monthly; weekly posts with sketches and commentary.

Have something you use all the time?
Please share!