Cross-pollination gives life to a new flower with pollen from another flower. Busy bees help in the process to make the exchange happen. And you’re in luck – just like the busy bees, we’ve put together a fructifying selection of community platforms for designers to plug into fresh and fruitful ideas.
Better together! Design communities are the digital sphere to exchange ideas with other designers. Here you can find out everything about the latest trends, so you can always stay in the know.
What do these communities have to offer? Exciting designs, feedback on your work, inspiration and help with solving tricky design tasks. Take a closer look at our top 8 design platforms to cross-pollinate your creative field of ideas
1. Coroflot
Coroflot is an online veteran of career communities. For many years, the platform has had a strong focus on design professions and careers in the creative industries. The aim of the community is to connect designers within companies all over the world.
On Coroflot, you can follow other creatives and get regular updates on their activities. As soon as you like an individual work of one of your favorite designers, each like is saved in your Likebox. This way you create your own personal inspiration pool.
You can upload your own work to your portfolio as often as you like. To optimize your portfolio, simply use the visitor statistics: here you can see how many visitors have visited which pages of yours. You can put the most visited pages in the focus of your portfolio. Coroflot also offers a job board where you can find interesting new jobs and assignments. Best of all: all designer accounts and the directory of all possible employers are visible and completely transparent for you.
Link: www.coroflot.com/discover
2. Ello
Ello was founded in 2014 as an ad-free alternative to other social networks for creatives. On Ello, no user data is sold to third parties, no advertising is displayed, and the use of your real name is not required.
Artists and their works and ideas are actively promoted within the platform on an editorial homepage. Ello has a giveaway program for its members’ art. Every week, Ello buys 3 artworks from its users and gives them away randomly to 3 users of the site.
There is also a closed artist community that you can join (by invitation only). Here you can participate in various projects and are financially rewarded for your contributions. The works of the members of this group are actively promoted.
In addition to this closed group, there are also free projects for everyone: Creative Briefs, where Ello brings the creative community together with brands, agencies and publishers.
Link: www.ello.co/discover
3. Dribbble
Dribbble is a social network for designers from different fields like animation, illustration, user interface, typography and more. Creatives upload images of their work and receive feedback from other designers in the community. Accordingly, Dribbble offers space for the presentation of your work AND is a social network for digital designers and creatives.
Dribbble also serves as a platform for design portfolios, as a job and recruitment site, and is one of the largest platforms for designers to share their work online.
Link: www.dribbble.com
4. DeviantArt
DeviantArt is a commercial online service, but has many elements of an internet community. The platform offers registered users the opportunity to publish their own works from the fields of photography, graphic design, or illustration.
Many of the published works can be offered in the integrated shop and ordered by other users in printed form. No paid membership is required.
Good to know: DeviantArt is one of the oldest and largest creative communities and is still very popular.
Link: www.deviantart.com/
5. Doodle Addicts
Doodle Addicts is an online art community that offers artists the perfect stage to:
– share their work with others,
– participate in drawing competitions,
– make art an essential part of their everyday lives.
The focus is on analogue drawing and doodling. The art competitions are about getting out of your individual comfort zone, improving your skills, and showing your personal style. The focus of the community is on artistic self-realization. There is no job or recruitment page.
Link: www.doodleaddicts.com/
6. ArtStation
ArtStation was founded with the aim of promoting artists and increasing their success and visibility. Creatives can actively get in touch with each other and present their work.
The more you post, the more visible you and your work become in the community.
ArtStation has different pricing models, but the basic model is free. There are also various recruitment packages that might be interesting for you.
Link: www.artstation.com
7. Pinterest
Old hat, you may wonder? Pinterest is still the number one search engine for inspiring and creative ideas. Since the platform focuses on everything visual, it offers fantastic opportunities to create a portfolio of your work.
Even if Pinterest doesn’t offer as many social interactions as other communities designed specifically for creatives, it remains a good platform for finding inspiration, making contacts and turning your own work into money.
Link: https://www.pinterest.com
8. Instagram
We all know Instagram, but we couldn’t leave it off the list. While it isn’t as focused on creative communities, it is still the premier platform for sharing visual media. The sheer number of users make it an important part of the creative professional’s toolkit.
As you may have guessed, the focus is on images and videos. This means your portfolio is quick and easy to put together. Unlike with Pinterest, you have a lot more opportunities to interact with others.
Link: www.instagram.com
The possibilities for digital creative exchange are endless. If you’re in the mood for even more inspiration, you’ll find plenty of material in the article on the best Instagram accounts for designers.
On which community platform do you exchange ideas on design topics? Do tell us in the comments!
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