Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
-Steve Jobs
Having a creative block? Stuck on your next project?
Never fear. Sometimes all it takes are a few go-to resources that you can draw from. I’ve put a few of my favorite sites that are sure to kick start your creativity.
Campaign Monitor is one of my favorite places to go for inspiration. They have a great gallery that they frequently update. While you can scroll on forever, you can also narrow your choices from one column emails to invitations and more. Campaign monitor also has great resources on how to design for the inbox, responsive email designs, coding your emails and more. It is an overall great website for when you need inspiration and knowledge about emails.
This is also another site that I use for inspiration. It’s similar to pinterest, where you just keep scrolling and scrolling. MailChimp also has a resource section on their website. It is a great library about everything email marketing! While MailChimp has a lot of great work on here, it would be nice if was set up similar to Campaign Monitor. But overall it is a great source of design.
Creattica has more than just email design inspiration. They cover four areas of design: Web and Screen, Art and Design, Print Design and Multimedia. Their Email Design section is very good. They have a good amount of different types of emails, and it also has a social aspect to it as well; you can sign up and submit your own designs. Viewers have the option to “favorite” your work which is similar to “liking” something on Facebook.
Dribbble is a community of designers. Designers post snippets or “shots” of their work. This is a good source for anything design. You can search for specific tags. just take a look at the latest or even search by color. I find this site very useful for finding new ways to make icons, buttons and other elements in the email. While you can sign up for dribbble, you won’t be able to submit work until someone invites you to be a “Player.” You start as a “Prospect” and can still like people’s work and follow designers.
Sign Up!
Yes, this isn’t a specific site, but I have signed up for multiple newsletters and sales emails over the years for the purpose of creating my own library. Pick emails that are similar to what you currently design for. If you do a lot of retail emails, pick places like Target, Fossil and JCPenney. See what they are doing and how you may be able to incorporate what they are doing in your designs. I would recommend you create a separate email account for this purpose, that way your personal account doesn’t get overloaded. Believe me, I know from experience.
