Helpful Resources

Sparking Creativity

Designspiration is a great photo-based, microblogging website for creatives, by creatives. Here, you can find project inspiration by searching for art type, by artist, and even by specific color! See my results to the right after selecting a bright yellow for my color search:

While preparing for my undergrad graphic design Capstone project and trying to come up with a compelling project idea, I experienced a real bout of creative block. I felt overwhelmed and burnt out. I eventually found a resource called "The Creative Break" by Nathalie from mentorless.com and benefitted greatly from the connect-the-dot mindfulness worksheet that comes with it.

Color Tools

Adobe Color is a free tool that allows you to select and compare colors side by side for compatibility. You can select your desired mode of "Color Harmony" i.e. Analogous, Monochromatic, Complementary, etc. and

see their exact RGB codes. You can also explore color themes that others have created, as see them in action:

An inspiring, "color super app" for creatives, Dopely is a great resource if you are looking for color palette ideas, gradient generation, color converters, and overall synchronicity in color for all of your projects. An especially cool feature for checking your design's accessibility is to

try out their color blind simulator.

Free Media Resources

You can find no-cost, royalty-free, high quality images that are perfect for your project at Pexels and Pixabay. These sites allow you to download images in a variety of sizes, and send a thank you donation to the original photographer if you choose. Stock photography can be a great addition to a pitch or presentation when you need to showcase how your project works for a target audience.

One of my favorite creative apps to use comes from Adobe. It's called Adobe Capture and it allows you to take smartphone photos and turn them into vector-based, editable files and a variety of other formats. My favorite way to use this app is when I need an electronic signature. It's easy to photograph a written signature, transform it into a clean, transparent file and email it to myself for insertion into documents.

It doesn't take a super experienced photoshop user to create professional looking mock-ups of project deliverables when you use a pre-made mockup template through a helpful site like GraphicBurger. Whether you want to clean up the presentation of your resume, or would like to create a display for your billboard design without actually paying for a billboard, mockups are your best friend. All you need is to follow the instructions that come with each mockup template, and Adobe Photoshop!

Copy/Pasting the entirety of a long, complicated URL into your presentation can ruin the professional look of your slides, or can be the difference between an acceptable word count in your social media post. With TinyURL, you can easily shorten any website URL into a condensed version of itself to take up less valuable room in your design.

Another great way to freshen up a long, clunky URL in your project is to convert it into a QR code. These are best to use when you want potential customers or viewers who are on the go to be able to access a webpage quickly and efficiently with their smart phone camera. A good site for this kind of resource is LogoDesign.net, which allows you to customize the colors of your QR code and even a logo or graphic to further personalize your design.

Writing and Citing Resources

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) has great resources for creating APA style academic citations, including a built-in citation machine from Chegg. This is a helpful tool for essay writing - both for reminders about proper use of APA and for creating your bibliography.

Also powered by Chegg, Easybib is another citation machine that allows you to cite your sources in a variety of formats. This tool is free for all and does not require special academic access.

Grammarly, a AI powered writing assistance tool is a great way to check your spelling, and see suggestions for alternative verbiage to strengthen your paper. It also includes a built-in citation machine.

Helpful Literature

For writing:

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
The Copywriter's Handbook by Robert W. Bly
Research Design by John W. Creswell and J. David Creswell

For branding:

Brand Storytelling by Miri Rodriguez
Planning for Strategic Communications by John A. McArthur, Ph.D.
#AskGaryVee by Gary Vaynerchuk

For graphic design:

Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook - Pricing & Ethical Guidelines