Brand-building is a creative process.
And as any good innovator, designer or creative strategist will tell you, the best creations start with inspiration.
Whether you are launching a new brand, a new messaging campaign, or looking to reposition, refresh, or rebrand, there are some fantastic online resources to help you.
In this article, we’re sharing a treasure trove of the best branding inspiration websites and resources that you can use to spark your inspiration and imagination for your next strategic branding project.
21 Stunning Branding Inspiration Resources (Brand Design & Strategy Examples)
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#1. Adweek – Classic Branding Inspiration Since 1979
Adweek began in 1979 and is the leading source of news and insight serving the brand marketing ecosystem.
This publication covers everything a strategist or brand-builder needs to know about advertising and branding.
The website is a go-to for marketers who want to keep up-to-date with the latest news in the marketing industry.
It has main navigation sections including “Brand Marketing”, “Creativity” and “Inside The Brand” to show you how some of the best brands in the world map out their markets.
Sub-sections include innovators and tips for success, which provide tools and inspiration for career development.
Though many articles are free, some sections are subscription only, but a regular study of AdWeek will provide you with endless ideas for overcoming your strategic brand challenges.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
As a leader in the industry, it’s no surprise that Adweek is a feature on this list.
On the website, you can find out about the latest trends, see killer ad campaigns, and more.
If you’re serious about being an industry leader, then leaning on inspiration from the top creatives and strategists at the biggest and most loved brands in the world is a no-brainer.
You can also sign up for the mailing list for the latest news delivered straight to your inbox.
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#2. Brand New – Exciting Graphic Design Inspiration
Graphic design company UnderConsideration launched Brand New to illustrate what brands were doing and the strategic decisions being made around visual identity and design.
A site designed for those who love design, the articles provide commentary, insights and stunning visuals on how brands are managing or transforming their visual identities to better attract customers.
The site navigation allows you to browse based on industry categories, from automobile to media, travel, hospitality and everything in between, while the editorial category breaks articles down by detail including ‘Reviewed’, ‘Noted’, ‘Spotted’, and ‘Linked’, to name a few.
Its Year in Review series is incredibly helpful for those who want to see recurring trends.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Brand New differs from many other branding inspiration websites. It’s not afraid to offer criticism and point out the good, the bad, and the ugly in brand design.
Whereas many other resources list the positives, Brand New can help you see where others went wrong and what to avoid.
It also carries a personal touch from cofounder Armin Vit, who isn’t afraid to voice his opinion.
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#3. The Branding Journal – An Archive of Brand Strategies
The Branding Journal is the obvious destination for brand strategists and brand managers seeking inspiration.
The website is full of helpful tips and tricks, and it’s easy to navigate to find what you need.
Alongside case studies and examples, The Branding Journal is filled with articles about the latest trends.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
The Branding Journal is an easy-to-use website that you can use to find what you’re looking for, with a massive search bar dominating the homepage.
What I love about The Branding Journal is that its content is broken down into core brand strategies such as brand architecture, brand positioning, rebranding, and brand experience, allowing you to dive deep into strategic decision-making within core areas of branding.
The Case Studies section offers a breakdown and analysis of different brand strategies.
It also invites users to “Join the Club” and connect with others in the industry.
#4. The Dieline – Packaging Design Inspiration
Andrew Gibbs started Dieline in 2017 to provide marketers with inspiration for their packaging designs.
This was a site I used to get lost in for hours simply because of all the amazing content on there. It’s currently the world’s most visited packaging design website, and that’s for a good reason.
The Dieline runs a hotly contested packaging design competition that attracts some of the best packaging designers in the world, which is part of the reason it’s such a treasure trove.
One of the things I love about The Dieline (apart from the amazing inspiration it serves up) is that it executes one of the most fundamental aspects of branding; that is, specified targeting.
These guys know who they are and exactly who they’re speaking to.
They’re all about Packaging Design and they stay in their lane.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
The UX makes it easy to browse through packaging designs by category, making it super easy to find the relevant inspiration you’re after while the lists of relevant events to attend keeps you on the leading edge.
Thanks to its sought-after awards that designers want, there’s no filler content and only the best of the best make the list, so there’s no sifting through garbage to get to the best packaging designs in the world.
#5. BrandStruck – Specific Examples of Big Brands
If you, like many strategists and marketers, want to know what the biggest and best are doing, then BrandStruck is here to help.
This premium database includes a wealth of case studies of different brands, including huge corporations like Mcdonald’s, Nestle, Chanel, and more.
This is a great educational resource if you want to learn more about what works for the big brands, how they’re structured, and the archetypes they use.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
BrandStruck has an awesome search function on its site where you can search by brand and archetype.
The detailed category sections allow you to explore not just the overarching industries such as Automotive, Energy, and Retail, but sub-categories such as Oral Care, Luxury Apparel and Wearables.
No matter what you’re looking for, you can find it here.
BrandStruck is run by senior brand experts who analyze each case study and provide valuable insights, allowing you to lean on decades of experience.
#6. Pinterest – Inspiration at Your Fingertips
Social media platform Pinterest is not always used by brand strategists, but it’s an extremely undervalued resource.
To many professionals, Pinterest might seem like it came and went, but it’s been a consistent slow burner, churning along and establishing convenient links to some of the best branding work on the planet.
Get clear on the keywords you’re after and Pinterest will serve you the best images and boards, all linking back to the source and acting as a control room for endless inspiration.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Pinterest is enormously popular, with millions of pins added to the site every day.
You can organize your favorite ideas into mood boards, helping you stay on top of things while designing different campaigns.
As a user, you can save your favorite ideas as inspiration or tap into the boards created by others, referring back to them whenever you need a spark of creativity.
#7. Dribbble – Where Designers Show off
Dribbble is an online community where brand designers upload and showcase their own work. Founded in 2009, this resource is an incredible backlog of top-tier branding and marketing visuals.
Brands, freelancers, and teams upload their campaigns to Dribbble to show off the best of the best in branding, including case studies and examples.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Although Dribbble is community-led (it’s run by the users), the site works on an invitation-only basis, so only the crème de la crème of marketing can make its way onto the database.
Not only can you view case studies of branding campaigns, but you can also check out animations, typography, product design, and more.
#8. BP&O – Opinions from the Experts
Branding, Packaging, and Opinion (BP&O) has been a leader in branding for over a decade.
Founded by designer Richard Baird, BP&O began as a blog and flourished into a publication.
This resource offers daily brand design inspiration with case studies and examples of visual identity, providing endless inspiration to brand builders and designers all over the world.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Yes, the visuals are stunning and it’s quickly obvious that Richard Baird has a strong eye for design, but it’s the ‘Opinion’ part of BP&O that makes it such a fantastic resource.
Users can read through the opinions of branding experts to get a fresh view of what works and what doesn’t, using these insights in their own projects.
For really keen brand builders, the BP&O Plus subscription provides even more sources of inspiration.
#9. Awwwards – Recognizing Talent
Awwwards recognizes web design industry talent with a jury of experts who dish out awards.
They give awards to agencies, developers, and designers, who submit their own designs for review.
Awwwards judges sites based on design, creativity, content, and usability.
Alongside the jury, the Awwwards Community can also vote on their favorite designs and get involved.
The result? An extensive resource of some of the best examples of User Experience and User Interface design in the world.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
A hallmark of awesome sites for inspiration is their ability to browse by category or search by topic, and Awwwards doesn’t disappoint.
With a growing community of creators and sought-after awards up for grabs, it’s a hotspot ground for the world’s best in web design.
While some site designs are quite experimental rather than commercial, Awwwards serves up some beautiful examples of modern web design.
Awwwards announces a site of the day every day, which makes it an endless source of inspiration.
It gives you a chance to see websites that you’ve never seen before from designers and agencies you’ve never heard of.
#10. Marketing Examples – Endless Inspiration
For Marketing Examples, it’s in the name.
This website compiles daily inspiration into an easy-to-use homepage where you can scroll endlessly until inspiration strikes.
There are also helpful categories like “Brand” and “Creative” to limit the articles you’re looking at.
All of the articles are quick and easy to read, so you don’t have to spend hours learning about branding.
Instead, the information is punchy, straightforward, and genuinely helpful.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
If you’re a visual person, Marketing Examples is perfect.
Plenty of the ‘articles’ are actually just infographics that deliver the point in a visual way.
Harry’s Newsletter is also a brilliant inbox treat for brand strategists keen to learn more.
You can sign up via Marketing Examples for inspiration delivered to your email inbox every week.
#11. The Drum – Marketing News Everyday
The Drum is a leading publication with over a million readers.
Articles are published every day on the latest trends, along with forecasts and predictions for the future.
The navigation menu lets you browse categories like ‘Creativity’, ‘Modern Marketing’, and ‘Digital Transformation’.
There are even Awards Case Studies so you can see what the best brand strategists in the world are doing to achieve recognition.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
The Drum is an awesome resource for planning future strategies.
Trend forecasting is perfect if you want to see where your industry is heading, and the articles have some actionable insights that you can apply to your own business.
It’s easy to find everything you want to read about, and the articles are written by industry experts, so you know the information is valuable.
#12. Ads Of The World – Global Success Stories In Marketing
Ads of the World (AOTW) celebrates creativity.
I could (and I have) spent hours scrolling this site, diving into the best digital ads and even guerilla marketing tactics.
If you love clever, witty branding and ads, then AOTW is where you can find the best of the best.
The AOWT team scours the web to find the best ad campaigns in the world, publishing them online to boost their reach.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
AOTW brings the best brand strategies to your attention.
The site allows you to ‘watch’ certain categories, which means you can follow the campaigns and industries that interest you the most.
I also like using the bookmark feature to save my favorite ads, and I can come back to them whenever I need a hit of inspiration.
#13. Identity Designed – Graphic Design Inspiration
David Airey launched Identity Designed in 2010 as a side project to highlight his favorite branding work.
It’s always a good sign when a site is run by one branding specialist, because they can share their expert opinions on specific works.
Airey shares hundreds of his favorite design projects and writes a little description about each one. The whole site is a treasure trove of inspiration.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Identity Designed highlights amazing visual campaigns from brands around the world.
There’s a huge emphasis on the visual aspects of branding, which gives you some great inspiration for photography, logos, ads, and more.
#14. SaaS Landing Pages by Cruip – Saas Inspiration
Cruip’s SaaS Landing Pages is a great place to find inspiation for creative web designs.
The website has detailed breakdowns of each website and even the mobile designs, including the font, color scheme, and more.
Though the site promotes SaaS landing pages, the inspiration and lessons you’ll find are applicable to a far greater reach of categories.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Branding and strategy apply to websites, too, but lots of strategists use the same tired templates. SaaS Landing Pages offers up some fresh approaches.
You don’t have to be a SaaS brand to browse this website. The ideas are helpful for all brand builders, who can draw on inspiration from the visuals.
#15. Logo Design Love – Logo Inspiration
For logo inspiration, Logo Design Love is like heaven. It’s another brainchild of David Airey, owner of Identity Designed.
The website is similar, with a huge focus on the visual.
Each logo offers a window of insight into the brand, and Airey sometimes shares his opinion on the pieces.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Logos are an integral part of branding.
Logo Design Love gives brand builders a great chance to see how different logos can play into brand identity.
From color scheme and shape to typeface, this is a great place to consider what effect a logo has on branding.
Airey’s interviews with the designers and thoughts on each piece are also incredibly insightful.
#16. The Design Blog – A Fresh Perspective On Branding
The Design Blog does what it says on the can. The homepage boasts the slogan, “Don’t just be a designer – be a good one,” which is a great motto to live by for brand builders.
There are sections of the website to browse, with the uploaders posting daily content according to a theme.
For example, on Mondays there’s a Designer of the Week award; later in the week there’s a Web Design Wednesdays showcase.
My personal favorite is Saturday Recommendations, where bloggers share absolutely everything they find inspiring, from movies and books to music and websites.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
The Design Blog always offers a fresh perspective on brand design.
It also houses a large collection of inspiration for everything, including web design, logos, and ads.
There is also a “Resources” section with tons more information and helpful tools for designers.
#17. I’m Just Creative – An Evolving Portfolio Of Inspiration
Independent creator Smithographic (Graham Smith) created I’m Just Creative to celebrate his favorite brand identities, including his own portfolio.
Smith has over 30 years of branding experience, so his opinion is incredibly valuable.
His design blog features everything from breakdowns of fully-fledged marketing campaigns to snippets of inspiration like vintage bus tickets and open-source collections for sharing design principles.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Smith’s portfolio is a work of genius that has taken a long time to build.
His detailed blog is filled with inspiration from all angles – it’s very easy to scroll forever and ever and get lost in the visuals.
With everything in one place, it’s easy to just keep scrolling and become inspired in an instant.
#18. Behance – Artwork Inspiration
Behance is an online community of designers where anyone can post their work. As a result, there is a large database of designs where you can access a broad range of materials.
The search bar dominates the homepage, so it’s easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.
There are also tons of filters to explore. You can organize the website by curated designs, most recommended, most appreciated, etc., so you can find what you’re looking for. You can even search by color.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Behance is part of the Adobe family, so it’s a well-used resource with a large database of designs.
It has everything you need to find inspiration for visual branding strategies. If you click on something you like, you can see the logo, website, individual web pages, product design, and more. It’s literally an endless pool of branding.
When searching, you can also combine filters, getting really specific and digging deep into the kind of branding you want to see.
#19. Siteinspire – Interactive Web Inspiration
Siteinspire is a fantastic source of inspiration for web design.
There is a big focus on interactive websites, shining a spotlight on the designers and agencies behind them.
The site features an array of tags and filters so you can explore the websites you love most.
From industries like music, property, and recipes to styles like monochrome, editorial, and retro, you can find anything here.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Siteinspire is helpful for anyone designing a website to pick up some inspiration and tips.
However, it’s a very minimalist site and doesn’t include much information.
Instead, it’s just a great catalog of imagery to browse while you seek inspiration.
#20. Pretty Little Marketer – Designed For Freelancers
Pretty Little Marketer (PLM) is a resource designed specifically for freelance marketers to help them thrive in an increasingly competitive market.
Sophie Miller, the face behind PLM, started it as a personal portfolio. But now, it has grown into a fantastic resource for marketers.
Although the website is more limited, the PLM social media channels (specifically Instagram and LinkedIn) share way more tips and tricks.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
PLM is an awesome resource for freelance brand strategists and agencies. Miller shares actionable insights on the latest trends and her top tips for staying ahead of the game.
She also frequently shares lists like this one, which point brand strategists in the right direction for fresh inspiration.
PLM is also ideal if you’re looking for inspiration on personal branding, which Miller does excellently.
#21. Medium – Fresh Opinions On Branding
Medium is a collaborative resource where writers share anything and everything, but it’s also helpful for brand builders.
Tags like “Branding”, “Marketing”, and “Brand strategy” are really helpful for finding the information you want to know.
Experts in the field share their knowledge and portfolios here, making it a great place to see some unique inspiration.
Why Use This Website for Branding Inspiration?
Users on Medium often share their thoughts on branding campaigns and visual designs, as well as sharing useful tips.
Browsing the relevant articles on Medium can help you find opinions on some of the latest trends.
It also provides a gateway to engage with other brand strategists and marketers in the community and can show you some specific insights into your industry.
Over To You
All twenty-one of these sites are amazing places to start if you want some new inspiration for your brand.
Branding can sometimes get a bit stale, so check out these strategic and tactical ideas if you want to freshen up your the brands you’re building.
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