60+ Essential Feeds for Freelance Web Designers

By Selene M. Bowlby in Web Design on November 12th, 2008

Freelance Folder recently posted an open thread asking the question “How Do You Stay Sharp?” The post has some great discussion in the comments section, where many people said that it’s through web sites and blogs that they are able to keep up to date on developments in their particular fields.

Web Design / Development Blogs You Should Be Reading

I myself have a set of design and development related blogs that I read… whether for the latest xhtml/css and WordPress tricks, for design inspiration, etc.

I asked my designer friends on Twitter which sites they thought were the best design blogs to read. You know, the old question “if you were stuck on a desert island and could only have one…” LOL

Without a doubt, the number one answer was Smashing Magazine – for good reason! But there were many others, as well. So for all of the web designers and developers out there, below are 17 essential design blogs you should be reading!

More Design Blogs You May or May Not Know About
aka Some Twitter Friend Link Love

The blogs above are great and very popular, but we all know there are a LOT more than this. There are a ton of great blogs out there, many of which you might never have heard of. Or if you have, they don’t quite get the publicity they deserve.

I’m eternally grateful to my Twitter friends – we’re a great bunch helping each other out with questions, retweets, Diggs, Floats, you name it… Twitter has a fantastic community feel to it. I’ve received a ton of support and link love and I want to return the favor…

So without further ado, here is a bit of a Twitter link love of my own – 46 design / development blogs of some great Twitter friends!

To all of the people above, I say Thank You!

What’s In Your Feed Reader?

If you could only read 1 design related blog, what would it be?
Please share your inspiration in the comments below!

More Essential Feeds

About the Author

About the AuthorSelene M. Bowlby is a web designer and front-end web developer with over twelve years of professional experience in the design industry. As the owner of iDesign Studios she specializes in creating custom web sites for other businesses. more »

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  • http://www.mayhemstudios.com mayhemstudios

    Thanks for the link love! Here we go again. lol

  • http://www.imjustcreative.com ImJustCreative

    Ohhh you wonderful person you. I keep on saying it, but I never tire of lists, lists and love are great. Keeps us all going and ensures a healthy flow of info and people to bore to death with.

    So thanks awfully for including me, and the first list of feeds has shown me a few I didn’t really know about. So great stuff.

    Thanks
    Graham

  • http://styl.eti.me styletime

    More RSS feeds ;) I’m trying to keep up with 400+ already! ;)

    Thanks for featuring Styletime!

  • http://essentialkeystrokes.com Char

    Keeping up with trends, techniques, what works and what doesn’t is a tough job, but lists like this make it so much easier!

    Thanks for including me in the list and giving me a few new people to follow!

    Char

  • http://www.visionaryblogging.com/ Easton Ellsworth

    I like that you included yourself Selene LOL :)

    All the TUTS sites are incredible. Smashing Magazine and Vandelay Design are also favorites of mine.

    Ben Hunt and David Airey too.

    Thanks so much for this list Selene!

  • http://www.neonrain.com/blog/ Arif

    @Graham Yes, lists are fun…

    There are so many feeds and so little time to determine which ones are most valuable. Who has the time to do that?!

    Why not allow someone that’s respectable such as Selene do the hard work for you :)

    Thanks for the list Selene…It’s a great place to start.

    Arif

  • http://anidandesign.com Dani McDaniel

    Ooo thank you lovely! I <3 lists especially when I’m on them! :)

  • http://www.fudgegraphics.com Franz Jeitz

    Great selection. I would have chosen all of those if it were my list. thanks for the link love! twitter rules!

  • http://css-tricks.com Chris Coyier

    Hey Selene,

    Thanks for the shout out! It’s always amazing when you find people doing your evangelizing for you =) See ya ’round on Twitter.

  • http://sharebrain.info thomas

    awww….. thx for the mention! means a lot to me :)
    thomas

  • http://www.creativeworld.com.au Leon Poole

    Hi Selene – this is a top list you’ve got. I’m already following most of them. I’ve got a design blog too if you’re interested?

    Blog: http://www.creativeworld.com.au/blog/
    Twitter: http://twitter.com/creativeworld

  • http://justcreativedesign.com Jacob Cass

    Nice collection and good idea with the Twitter links!

  • http://fuelyourcreativity.com Adelle

    Selene, great idea & I agree with Jacob on the twitter links! Thank you so much for including fuelyourcreativity.com, I really appreciate your support as well others in the design community.

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  • http://www.danhbaweb20.com/ Danh ba web 2.0

    Thanks for great list. Keep up the good work !
    I will check all

  • http://www.leemunroe.com Lee Munroe

    Great list Selene, very useful to have to hand.

    And I appreciate the link.

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  • http://www.davidairey.com David Airey

    Very much appreciated, Selene! Thanks also to Easton for his personal recommendation.

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  • http://spyremag.com Jon Phillips

    Hey Selene! :)
    Thanks a ton for including SpyreMag! Really appreciate it! It’s nice to be in such good company hehe

    See ya on Twitter!

  • http://daibach.co.uk/wp/ Dafydd Vaughan

    Good post – thanks for the list Selene. Already have quite a few of them, so nice to see I’m on the right track for a change!

  • http://thedanielrichard.com Daniel Richard

    Love this list! I’m already following some of them here. Looks like there’s more to add this weekend. :)

  • http://www.smashingapps.com An Jay

    Wonderful post and a great list, few of them are really new for me. You forgot to add SmashingApps.com

  • http://www.andysowards.com/blog Andy Sowards

    Nice list of feeds! Good stuff! Some I have and some I don’t! Keep up the good work!

  • http://www.dcblog.net Doug C.

    Selene, thanks for including me in your list :)

  • http://www.d2lgraphics.com/blog frank

    Thanks for the Twitter links!

    @frankd2l

  • http://www.logodesign.org George – LogoDesign.org

    Very nice list, definitely some blogs there I hadn’t heard of.

    BTW, I run a design blog at LogoDesign.org, if you felt like adding it :-)

  • http://phiredesign.net AJ Troxell

    Great list. Found some great new subscriptions!

  • http://www.thinkdesignblog.com Nick Pagano

    Awesome list! Thanks very much for including my site! :) btw, don’t know if I ever told you, but love your site design!

  • http://nikibrown.com/designoblog Niki Brown

    Great list! Thanks for featuring Creattica and The Design O’Blog! :)

  • http://www.thisisaaronslife.com Aaron Irizarry

    Great list! Lots of great people and inspiration here!

  • http://www.webmajor.com Web Major

    Great list! I was looking for a list like this since I lost my bookmarks and found yours. Thanks!

  • http://www.problogdesign.com/ Michael Martin

    Thanks for the mention Selene. Lot’s of designers to follow there! :D

  • http://www.bradstrickland.com/ Brad Strickland

    Great List. Made some new twitter friends.

  • http://www.megastarmedia.com/megastarmedia.html megastarmedia

    I love your blog. Keep up the great work. Beautiful designs btw.

    sandy
    megastarmedia.com

  • http://webtoolkit4.me Gerasimos

    So many lists out there but still adding new ones on my reader. Thanx for that :)

  • http://athenaemily.com AthenaEmily

    Thanks for including my website!
    I wasn’t following much on Twitter/Google reader these few days and i just saw this
    Thanks again! :)

  • http://topseowritingservices.com Karen @ SEO Writing Services

    I’ve just recommended this post to my Twitter followers, because this is too good to be missed. Now I’m going to bookmark it at Delicious.

    Thank you for compiling this list, Selene. Great job. I’m not a web designer, but I’m very interested in the topic. Therefore, all (good) links are more than welcome. :)

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  • http://www.greenarch.co.uk Nandini@HIPs Consultant

    First of all I want to say that I have bookmarked this page and have also recommended some of my twitter friends to go through it. Thanks Selene for such a great list.

  • http://www.ree-she.com Rishi Luchun

    Nice list, Thanks

  • http://dailycss.net Dalius

    nice list but maybe tooo long… tired to browse time return to work…

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  • http://phiredesign.net AJ Troxell

    Thank you for the link love Selene. Lists like this are a great way of communicating some people that other don’t know about. Here comes more Follows!

  • http://www.bradstrickland.com/ Brad Strickland

    Good list! I picked up a few new tweet peeps.

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  • http://www.hi-fai.com/ Mr Web Design

    Wow, this list is overwhelming! But in a good way of course…

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  • http://www.creative-web-designer.com Scott @sydneydesign

    Hi, love the list i’ll check out the feeds. Who needs to do any design when you can spend all day reading blogs.

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  • http://www,99graphicdesigns.com charlotte

    great list, I included you on my blog roll Selene, great stuff you got here, I am always looking for new people websites to explore. I also think css play is a great resources that is often over looked, I think its one of the best design resources around.

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  • http://www.adriancrellin.co.uk/ Adrian Crellin

    What a great list!!!

    I’ve heard of quite a few of these, but there are also many I have not visited before.One of my personal favourites that doesn’t appear to be on the list is:

    http://www.queness.com

    the tutorials on it are great!

  • http://openhippo.com Ritu Sharma

    Thanks for the 60 best feed sites

  • http://psdcollector.blogspot.com psdcollector

    great list,thank you.

  • http://www.apexfreelancedesigner.com Arnel Piquero

    Thanks for sharing and for the links. For my design blog, I prefer the Smashing Magazine. Lots of article to choose with.

    I will also try other links that you have provided. This will also help me in my freelancing work because I’m also a filipino freelance website designer.

    I will follow all this twitter you have provided. Thanks once again. Have a nice day.

  • http://howtotweak.com/ Flinn Megal

    So many lists out there but still adding new ones on my reader. Thanx a lot m keep it up .

  • http://www.limefox.co.uk Limefox

    This is a geat list. I’m a big fan of all the Tuts sites – their tutorials are professional and informative. That goes for Smashing Magazine too.

    I’ll be checking the unknowns out very soon .. :)

  • http://www.christofcoetzee.co.za Christof Coetzee

    Being a Freelance web developer mean you probably don’t share office space with other techies – hence you have very limit interaction and sharing of information.
    As a freelance developer your only source of information is the Web, and staying up to date with the latest information and trends means you need to research and read all the time.

    But reading is not enough you have to do as well, and make a point of attending seminars, workshops etc. interaction with other developers in your field is essential – else you’ll go bonkers.

  • Sapna

    Also try webdesign.org. Great site for beginneres like me!

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