My favorite design resources

What's your favorite design resource? I believe this is one of the most commonly asked questions amongst designers. When I was starting out, I spent a lot of time researching and trying out resources that can help me design better and grow my business. I recalled it could get overwhelming really fast as there are just so many amazing resources out there, plus let’s admit it, FOMO is real and it can cripple us from making wise decisions if we are not careful!

The following resources have helped me with my design work, find confidence in my process, and grow my business. I hope sharing my favorite resources could help you in your own process and grow your business too :)

Design Tools

Adobe Creative Cloud

This one is my #1 tool for my design work and my favorite! As a brand and packaging designer, I do most of my work in Illustrator and Photoshop. But the Creative Cloud gives me access to all the other apps that supported my works, like InDesign for all my presentation templates, XD for my social media templates, Lightroom for photo editing (I love their mobile apps for quick edits), and Premiere for video editing. I think Creative Cloud is the industry standard and a must-have in any print and digital media designers’ toolbox.

Typography

Typography is an indispensable building block for a brand designer. Choosing the suitable typeface to represent a brand is crucial as it can emotionally impact your audience. Here are some of my favorite resources for type inspirations:⁠

• Adobe Fonts - My favorite resource and you immediately get access to thousands of fonts for free with the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

• Typewolf by Jeremiah Shoaf - This is my first stop to visit for font inspirations, especially for font pairings.⁠

• 100 Days of Fonts by Do-Hee Kim - Beautiful pairing using only free Google Fonts! Who doesn't love beautiful & well-paired free fonts?⁠

• Fonts in Use - An independent archive of typography for inspirations on print pieces.⁠ Perfect for brand collaterals inspirations.

• Youworkforthem and Creativemarket - A creative marketplace for fonts and graphics. This is where I do most of my font shopping.

• Jenwagner.co - I love Jen's font collections, especially the font duos - they are perfectly paired!

Color Palette

Color is more than a visual experience. It has the power to influence how you make people feel about your brand. Having a color palette is key to creating a cohesive brand and strong visual presence. Here are my favorite resources or tools to use:

Pantone Guides - I used the Pantone Color Bridge Guide Set and absolutely loved it. It is an essential tool to compare side-by-side how Pantone spot colors appear when printed in CMYK. I also have a Pantone Pastel and Neons Guide to help me choose pastel and bright neon colors.

Pantone Connect

Adobe Color

Coolors

or simply pull the colors manually from moodboard images on Illustrator

Stock Images

Do you know that the images you choose can make or break a brand? Imagery plays an important role in brand design. It is a powerful tool to define the right mood and reflect the brand’s personality. Here are some of my favorite resources for quality stock images:

Moyostudio
Unsplash
Pexels
Pixabay
Stocksy

Mockups

Looking for ways to showcase your works better? Invest in a good-quality mockup! As designers, we might be able to visualize how a logo can be applied to a specific product, but it might not work for our clients. It is our job to help our clients see what we see! I love using mockups for my concept presentation, they help my clients visualize how the concept would look in real life. ⁠Here are some of my favorites:

Moyostudio
Rebecca Berrington
Mr. Mockup
No Issue Creative Community - They provide complimentary PSD bundles that are perfect for your packaging mockups needs.

DESIGN COURSES

Another big part of improving my design skills/processes is through education. I absolutely love courses! I believe investing in a course is one of the most effective ways to uplevel my skills. Here are some of the courses that I have carefully sorted and purchased in the past year. They have helped me tremendously in growing my skills and confidence as a brand and packaging designer.

Branding with Bre by Rowan Made. This is the first course I took when I decided to niche into branding. I learned so much about the branding process from Bre and how to get my studio up and running. The course is a real eye-opener and I love how intentional Bre is with the course and her community. She highly values accessibility and this course is excellent if you are starting out and want a solid guide. On top of the course’s accessible fee, you can also get a $25 off coupon using my code “blomexbwb”.

The Designer Essentials Club by Wayfarer Design Studio. This course is a game-changer for my business. Abbey is really thorough with her entire brand and web design process and I love how she always encourages us to find what works for us instead of having a cookie-cutter approach. Her course helped broaden my perspective in many ways - from how to present your design rationale to your clients, how to use Dubsado, how to raise your price, how to create a passive income stream, and many more. Everything I learned from this course is truly invaluable in helping me find the confidence to run my own design business. I shared more about my experience in the course interview and you can watch the full interview here.

The Brand and Packaging Design Course by Our Kind Studio. This course is pivotal in setting myself up as a packaging designer. I was questioning myself a lot and wondering if I was doing things right when it came to packaging for product-based brands. Laura's approach challenges me to think out of the box and create a brand experience like no other. Her extensive agency experience also helps me build a solid, industry-standard process for my projects.

So there you have it, my favorite design resource! I believe choosing to invest in resources that feel right and meet you precisely where you are at with your business will always be the way to go. You don't need to follow what everyone is doing (including me) or purchase just because you feel FOMO. Do your research, see what you actually need, and then invest wisely! 

Kindly note that some of the links above are my affiliate links. Feel free to use them to get more out of the resources above. And do let me know if I am missing out on any other great resources out there. I would love to learn from you too! :)

P.S.: If you want to know my favorite tools I use to run my business, do check out “My Favorite Business Tools” blog post here.

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