Tumblr blogs are a brilliant way to showcase your creative work, highlight the work of those you admire, or just share things you like. There are some impressive examples around – packed with inspirational design. Tumblr is one of the top blogging platforms and social networks, and the process makes it super-easy for anyone wanting to start a blog.
You can have a Tumblr blog up and running in a matter of minutes, and having a Tumblr account also enables you to 'follow' other people via their Tumblr blogs. It's this ease of use, and social appeal, that has seen Tumblr serve more than 45 million sites. But with such a vast amount of blogs, it's hard to find the best.
With that in mind, we've done all the hard work for you, and brought you the best Tumblr blogs for designers, covering graphic design, web design, photography, illustration, typography and more. If you want to start your own blog, do your research with our pick of the best free blogging platforms around.
01. This isn't Happiness
It's hard to think of a Tumblr we love more than Pete Nidzorski's This isn't Happiness. Mixing up art, design, vintage photography and strange running themes that you'll get to recognise after following it for a while, it's a daily helping of cool stuff that's never less than entertaining and often thoroughly inspiring.
02. We and the Color
Founded by Dirk Petzold in 2010 to promote the most outstanding creative ideas of artists and designers from around the world, We and the Color aims to inspire people and show that creativity has no bounds. Expect a variety of posts covering art, design, illustration, photography, architecture, fashion, animation, filmmaking and more.
03. Design Clever
Design Clever is a collaboration by Jonathan Ring and Bethany Baker – two aspiring graphic designers with a passion for everything design related. So, they created this brilliant Tumblr blog to collate anything and everything that inspires them. "This blog was created to showcase talented designers all over the world and their amazing talents," they explain. If you'd like to be part of it, submit your work.
04. Design Cloud
Design Cloud is a carefully selective and informed blog that features images of new work covering a wide range of design fields, from graphic design to architecture. This Tumblr blog is beautifully laid out and easy to navigate.
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05. I Heart My Art
I Heart My Art is a seriously cool collection of contemporary art, videos, vintage photography and much more. Run by Canadian artist and graphic designer Blair Prentice, he describes it as a "repository for art, music and other items of interest." Check this site out if you're looking for something a little different.
06. Graphic Design & Tattoos
Curated by designer Marc Ostlund, Graphic Design & Tattoos showcases the crossover between the two creative disciplines. If you just want to look at the tattoos or the graphic design images, Ostlund has provided some handy tabs at the bottom of the page.
07. Posters of Berlin
Set up by UX designer Anna Weiss, Posters of Berlin follows the simple premise of showcasing posters that Weiss found in the streets of Berlin – both commercial and by street artists.
"This is simply a platform that collects the visual footprints of culture left on our beloved city for your viewing pleasure," says Weiss, who has lived in Dublin and Berlin, but is now based in Gothenburg, Sweden.
08. Nice Type
If you like your typography to move then Nice Type is a splendid source of inspiration. It's curated by Matthew Buchanan, who scours Vimeo for the best examples of motion typography and kinetic type animation, and posts them on this great-looking Tumblr.
09. Font Police
Oh, how others can get it so wrong with fonts. Here, the Font Police gets it right with a dig at those cringe-worthy offenders that make even the most laid-back scream at the screen in astonishment.
Most typographers would never dream of committing such horrific crimes but do yourself a favour and check this out before you get designing. This is one blog you wouldn't want to be featured on!
10. Clients From Hell
Working as a designer, it's inevitable that you're going to run into some difficult clients. If you reach the point of wanting to tear your hair out, take a look at the first site in our best Tumblr blogs list: Clients From Hell. Set up by a collective of designers, this Tumblr showcases some of the best client horror stories.
Ranging from the unpaid to the plain unbelievable, Clients From Hell will have you laughing in astonishment. Our favourite?
- CLIENT: I can't pay you.
- ME: Why?
- CLIENT: Because my client hasn't paid me.
- ME: I can see how that could be frustrating.
11. Happy Web Design
French graphic designer Maxence Diveu specialises in brand visual identities, art direction, print edition and web design, and it's the latter that forms the focus of his Tumblr blog, Happy Web Design. If you want some ideas about what's hot on the web right now, head this way for a bit of inspiration.
12. Eat Sleep Draw
Presented as an online art gallery, Eat Sleep Draw brings you huge amounts of inspirational illustration and art each week. Updated on an almost hourly basis, if the best Tumblr blogs were decided on frequency of posting, it would be a clear winner.
In fact, it's easy to find yourself 30 pages into this Tumblr blog and suddenly wonder where the last two hours went (and why you're behind on that article you should have submitted over an hour ago).
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