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The design community is an active, vibrant collective that utilizes many tools to make sure they stay on top and ahead of the game. They keep a deep and varied assemblage of tools to make the most of their designs, and to make the most for their designs. Now what I mean by for their designs is this, designers understand the importance of having a presence on the interwebs to help in catapulting and growing the exposure for their work, and for obtaining new contacts for future work. So it is with this in mind, that we present a look at this fantastic tool of the design trade, the design blog!

The Tool

Since its online inception, blogging has become a powerful mechanism for not only improving one’s reach into the community in which they are active, but for bringing others in and exposing them to what it is you have to showcase. For designers, this interactive and openly personal tool became a unifying and driving force for the overall design community. It is no wonder the online design collective is one of the largest most active groups on the web, and by and large, blogging seems to be the designer’s go to weapon of choice. It is certainly the interactive element of the blogs that attracts more people to them, than say, an online portfolio. Please do not think that we are saying a portfolio is not a valuable tool in and of itself, for it most definitely is. But with the frequency of updates and the personal insight gained from the user's experience, there is simply more draw to a blog for most web surfers.

The Uses

Designers are drawn to this tool for its numerous benefits and its open ended usefulness. The blog can be as large or as little a tool as you want it to be (as for that, so can you as you are using this tool, so lets hope you air on the side of little tool or none at all. Remember, Sam Jackson said it best, '...Personality goes a long way'. Don't let yours take you a long way in the wrong direction.) To clarify the point, you can decide how much you wish to put into the blog, which effectively feeds the community, and that will determine how much you can get from it. Its versatility of use is as varied as its versatility of execution, which aids the designers in personalizing this platform they can build upon. Designer’s love to have their signature style, and one of the ways they have effectively used blogging is to help establish that signature.

Blogs have also become a major source for learning opportunities, as the community has captured the creative spirit and become determined to share it with others. So many great tutorials and other valuable information being passed back and forth among the members of the online design collective, that it is simply strengthening the community as a whole. Shared experiences and words of caution fill the cyber-aether giving others the benefit of those experiences who have not had the opportunity to explore it for themselves. Skill development and professional training can be quite expensive, but with skilled professionals taking time to help teach and enrich the community through free tutorials and the like, they have made the world of design a friendlier more approachable landscape that will help so many flourish and grow!

To Sum Up

In short, or perhaps I should say in medium, the design blog is more than a valuable tool, it's an awesomely multi-functional, educational, inspirational, muppetational online extravaganza of usability! Sorry, I got all excited for a second, but that is easy to do over this topic. In fact, we have below a collection of ten design blogs we feel use this tool so effectively, it's an artform. That could explain the overwhelming excitement I felt...

Ten Top Design Blogs...in our humble opinions

Here they are in no particular order, whatsoever. Please note that we do understand that there are blogs like Smashing Magazine that are valuable and amazing sites. However, chances are you already know about those, as you will undoubtedly know about a couple of these. But we also wanted to feature some sites that may have gotten in under your radar.

The Fuel Brand Network

How could we not include this entire network of amazing and finely focused sites on the list? Some of you might answer, "Because not all of the sites are specifically about design.". To you we say, don't be so literal. We know they may not all be focused specifically on design but the entire network is about feeding creativity and fueling different aspects that all feed into design. Now, we have been a fan of Fuel Your Creativity for a while. Alone it is a wonderful source of inspiration and resources for designers. Lately the Fuel Brand Group has been growing by leaps and bounds, providing niche blogs geared toward pretty much anything creatives could want.

• Fuel Your Creativity
• Fuel Your Apps
• Fuel Your Coding
• Fuel Your Writing
• Fuel Your Photography
• Fuel Your Branding - Launching July 15th
• Also coming soon is Fuel Your Illustration and Fuel Your Interface.

The Design O'Blog

The two main things that make The Design O'Blog stand out for us are the Question of the Week and the Quick Tips. The Question of the Week is a post wherein Niki gets the community talking by posting a question for discussion on a particular topic, which are always worthwhile to check out. Quick Tips are posts that Niki uses to teach you quick and easy solutions in a fraction of the time most screencasts take. Community involvement is at the heart of keeping any group active, and Niki certainly takes and keeps the conversation going to new places and heights with her wonderful weekly contributions.

PSD Fan

PSD Fan is a great Photoshop blog whose offerings range from high quality tutorials to fanstastic freebies for, what else, Photoshop. Photoshop, the feature of a future installment of Designer's Tools, is hugely popular and there are a number of sites dedicated to this designer delight, but PSD Fan, is by far, one of our favorites. The tutorials are always top notch and a valuable contribution to the community. Now would also be a good time to mention that he also does some really quality interviewing over there now and again, such as his interview with our own Angie Bowen of Arbent Creative Designs.

Vandelay Design

Vandelay Design is another Arbenting favorite, which offers a wide array of inspirational posts for designers that always leave us in an amazingly creative headspace. Inspiring others to feed the creative process is no small feat, and Vandelay always has a way to do it with class and style. Beyond inspiration, the site has a well rounded collection of marvelous, in-depth resource lists and web design how-tos. Author Steven Snell has a very personable and approachable presence, which always makes interacting with him a pleasure.

The Design Cubicle

The Design Cubicle,which is run by Brian Hoff, is a fantastic site filled with quality content ranging across a number of areas of the design spectrum. And as far as personality goes, this site has it in spades. As we mentioned in the intro, personality can be key to the success of your blog, so when we discussed blogs that are run by folks with a great personality which shines through in the site, the Design Cubicle was the first to come to Angie's mind. Brian really makes his blog stand out with the personal way he interacts with his readers, so he was a must have for this list.

Think Design

Think Design is a fabulous blog to subscribe to if you are looking for design freebies or resources of any kind. Giving back to the online community in the form of freebies may draw criticism from some, but here at Arbenting we are fans of the freeb! Though if you have followed us for any amount of time at all, you have probably already realized that. So it is no wonder that we take a fancy to the few that dedicate their sites to this mission. Think Design, is one of our favorites of these ranks. Textures, vectors, brushes, and themes, whatever you need, chances are, they probably have it.

Creative Fluff

Creative Fluff is written by an eclectic group of designers from all walks of life. This makes the site very broad, offering up a little something for everyone. For this reason, and others, Creative Fluff has a go-to ranking in our reader, and we do daily checks for new installments to their content stream. With so many contributors coming together to offer multiple perspectives on the design field, they are an intense driving force that makes the site a blog to be reckoned with. If they are not already in your reader, you may want to make that adjustment today.

Little Box of Ideas

Little Box of Ideas is a wonderful blog that utilizes this tool to deliver some extremely original, high quality freebies to the online design collective. Though do not think for a second that they stop there, because they most certainly do not. The site also hits two other grand slams in the arenas of inspiration, by delivering some truly awesome inspirational posts, and when it comes to interviews, never falling short always providing insightful and fun designer discussions.

My Ink Blog

My Ink Blog offers pages of quality tutorials, which alone makes it worth subscribing to, however, one of the things we love so much about this site is that it regularly has great articles to offer on design. Don't get us wrong, there are lots of great articles out there in the blogosphere, but there are only a humble few that frequently delve as deeply into the discussions of their topics as Andrew will often do. For that, we love seeing new items pop up in our reader from MIB.

Graphic Identity

Graphic Identity is one of those great sites that cover such a wide variety of design topics it would be hard to list them all here. It would also be hard to make a list of ten top design blogs and not include this gem of a site among them. Make no mistakes about it coming in last on the list, friends, this blog is a find for anyone interested in the art of design blogging. Given the length of this post we should be calling it quits, but we could easily fill another few paragraphs full of praise for this sensational site alone. We will simply say this is a true design blog for design bloggers.

That's all folks

Seriously, that's it. What more do you want us to say? Now it's your turn. What are your must reads that you would have added to the list?

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