Hand-picked sites for agency and marketing teams, from creative, copy and design to social, influencers, PR, production, strategy, media and AI, each with our take on when to use it.
31 sites
Adobe's network for creative portfolios. Designers, illustrators, photographers and agencies publish whole projects as case studies, and the site lists freelancers and creative jobs.
Our takeSearch by discipline and location to shortlist freelancers. A full case study shows how someone thinks, not just the final frame.
A library of visual techniques for film and motion, from Dolly Zoom and Whip Pan to Stop Motion, each shown with example clips. It also publishes breakdowns of standout work.
Our takeKeep it open when you write a film treatment or a director's brief. It gives the whole team one name and one reference for the shot you have in mind.
An archive of advertising campaigns from around the world, each credited to its brand and agency. Founded by Ivan Raszl in 2005, it is now owned by Clio Awards and splits work into professional and student sections.
Our takeSearch a category or competitor before a brainstorm to see what has already been done. Browsing is open; you only need an account to bookmark or submit work.
An independent art and design magazine founded in 2009 by journalist Katy Cowan, covering new work, advertising and branding news, career advice, and creative jobs that show the salary.
Our takeGood for spotting illustrators, animators and photographers to brief, and its jobs board helps you benchmark salaries when you are hiring.
A daily magazine of architecture and design culture, running since 1999, with news and features across design, architecture and art, and live coverage from events such as Paris Art Week.
Our takeScan it when a brief needs cultural references beyond advertising: product, spatial and material ideas often show up here before they reach campaigns.
A visual reference search for film frames. Describe the shot you want in plain words or search with an image, then narrow the results by film details or by credits.
Our takeGood for building a director's treatment fast: describe the mood you want and pull the frames that show it. Free searches are limited, so subscribe if you use it weekly.
An AI search engine for film stills and visual references from films, TV series, ads and music videos. Search by mood, colour or era, collect frames into boards, and generate images in the same place.
Our takeThe free plan covers film and TV stills with unlimited searching and one download a day; pay when a pitch needs ads and music videos too.
A free library of stills from nearly 4,000 films, started in 2010 and still run by one filmmaker who picks every image. Each film gets a gallery with its director, cinematographer and production designer credited.
Our takeUse it to study a film's whole look, not just one frame. Browsing by cinematographer or aspect ratio helps when you're matching a treatment's style.
A searchable database of film and commercial stills for research and decks, tagged in detail by subject, setting and colour, from car interiors and diners to silhouettes and frames within frames.
Our takeSmaller than ShotDeck or Flim, but its detailed tags make it quick to find one specific kind of shot for a mood board.
Awards for web design and development, with a Site of the Day chosen daily and more honours through the year. Its galleries sort winners by trend, category and technology, alongside courses, jobs and an agency directory.
Our takeStart here before a website brief. Filter the galleries by your client's sector to show what a strong site looks like, then use the directory to shortlist digital studios.
A community where designers share short shots of their work, from interfaces and icons to illustration, motion and brand marks. Companies use it to find and hire designers.
Our takeBest for detail: interface, icon and illustration references. For full brand case studies, Behance goes deeper.
A visual search engine for design inspiration across art, logos, photography, apps and interfaces. You can search by colour and save what you find into mood boards.
Our takeOur pick for mood boards. Searching by colour makes it quick to build a palette-led board for a brand or a campaign.
A browser extension that turns every new tab into a curated feed of design work and news, drawn from sources such as Dribbble, Behance and Awwwards. It also has a searchable archive and colour tools.
Our takeInstall it across the team for daily references without the hunting. Set the feed by discipline so brand, motion and UX designers each see their own.
A gallery of current design work sorted by format, from websites, interfaces and app icons to branding, motion, posters, OG images and launch videos. It also runs a design jobs board.
Our takeUse it to see what's being made right now. It collects formats most galleries skip, such as launch videos, OG images and app screenshots.
An ad-free visual inspiration app for saving images, videos and links into private, public or shared collections. You can search by keyword, colour or visual similarity, and AI captions try to credit the original creator.
Our takeA cleaner alternative to Pinterest for team mood boards, and it can import your existing Pinterest boards. Core features are free; Premium costs $8 a month.
Google's library of open-source fonts, free to use in personal and commercial projects. Its Arabic families include Tajawal and Almarai, both by Boutros, as well as Amiri, Noto Kufi Arabic and Noto Naskh Arabic.
Our takeOur first stop for Arabic in web and social work: the licences are open, so a font chosen at pitch stage can go into production without a purchase.
A type foundry specialising in multi-script typography, with Arabic–Latin families such as Bukra, Zarid and Idris. It sells retail licences and creates bespoke type and logos for clients including Tamara and Balenciaga.
Our takeShortlist it for bilingual identities: the Arabic–Latin families spare you the hunt for a matching Latin partner, and the site lets you preview fonts before buying.
An Arabic type foundry and design studio in The Hague, run by Kristyan Sarkis and Peter Bilak as a sister company to Typotheque. It publishes retail and custom Arabic typefaces.
Our takeOur pick when an identity needs a distinctive Arabic voice. Ask for temporary test access to try a family before you buy the licence.
A cultural foundation and design research centre for Arabic typography and design across the Middle East, North Africa and their diaspora. It runs residencies, workshops and exhibitions, publishes books and hosts the Khatt Chronicles podcast.
Our takeBackground reading rather than a daily tool. Before an Arabic identity or type project, its research and podcast give the team context that Latin-led references miss.
An independent archive of typography in use, indexed by typeface, format and topic. Each entry shows a real project and names the fonts in it, Arabic typefaces included.
Our takeLook up a typeface before you license it: real projects show how it behaves at different sizes and what it pairs with, which a specimen alone won't.
A colour palette generator by independent developer Fabrizio Bianchi, with tools to explore community palettes, pick colours from photos and preview palettes on sample designs. Plugins cover Figma, Chrome and Adobe apps.
Our takeA quick way to rough out a campaign palette before it goes into the guidelines. The free plan saves up to ten palettes; Pro removes ads and limits.
A publication on brand and graphic design. Its features cover identity, packaging and branding projects, interviews with designers and studios, essays and new typefaces.
Our takeRead the case studies before a rebrand pitch. They show identities across their applications, which makes them strong references for a client deck.
A design blog running since 2006 that features new work from studios around the world every day, across branding, typography, packaging, illustration, 3D and UI.
Our takeA quick daily scan for branding, type and packaging work, with each project shown in several images rather than one.
BP&O (Branding, Packaging and Opinion) reviews brand identity and packaging work, with a focus on ideas, strategy and craft. Founded by Richard Baird, it also has sections for logos and motion.
Our takeRead it for the reasoning as much as the visuals; the reviews explain why an identity works. BP&O Plus, at £50 a year or £6 a month, unlocks unlimited access.
UnderConsideration's daily opinion and commentary on corporate and brand identity work, run by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio. Posts are sorted by industry and project type, from new identities to before-and-after redesigns.
Our takeUseful for benchmarking a rebrand against how peers have handled theirs. Full posts need a subscription; headlines and before-and-after images remain free to view.
An archive of brand guideline documents, from Coca-Cola and McDonald's to Saptco, searchable by language, year, size, region and tag. The documents are shared for educational use; rights stay with the brands.
Our takePull two or three guidelines from your client's sector before writing their brand book, to agree on scope and level of detail early.
A design magazine showcasing branding, web, graphic and packaging projects through in-depth case studies. Plus members also get behind-the-scenes insights into how each project was made.
Our takeRead the case studies when you need to explain an identity idea to a client: they show how one concept carries across every touchpoint.
A creative packaging design archive and gallery that has hand-picked projects since 2008. You can browse by category, material, project type, year and location, and submitting work is free.
Our takeFilter by location to find Saudi and UAE projects when a packaging brief needs regional references, then widen to global work for contrast.
A packaging design publication for consumer brands, designers and agencies, covering news, redesigns, interviews and its own Dieline Awards. It also runs a weekly trends newsletter, a directory of suppliers and agencies, and a job board.
Our takeFollow it to see where packaging is heading across categories. The free tier covers the newsletters; PRO, from $29 a year, opens the archive of articles and case studies.
A curated gallery of sites built in Webflow, run by the Webflow agency Digidop. Browse projects by category, colour and font, with a directory of Webflow experts and jobs.
Our takeUseful when a client wants a site their own team can update. Every example is built in Webflow, so you can show what the platform can do before recommending it.
A curated website design gallery, updated daily, that sorts pages by type, such as landing, pricing and sign-up, with filters for industry, style, typography, colour and platform. It also collects sections, headlines and motion.
Our takeGo here when you need references for one page type, such as pricing or careers, rather than whole sites. The free plan limits results; Pro is $9 a month.