They’re not blogs, and they’re definitely not just a gallery of pictures. These sites are actual communities or a group of artists put together that strive to push forward the limits of art and graphics and show the art community their talent.

depthcore

Depthcore is probably my favorite art group that release large packs (they call them “Chapters“) of artworks that are usually themed to a subject. All sorts of digital media are included such as graphics, digital drawings, 3D modeling, photography, and even music. This group contains some pretty big designers like Justin Maller, Pete Harrison, Nik Ainley and Jeff Huang.

I enjoy their music and all of the artworks posted in these chapters. With over 30+ chapters, if this is your first time visiting depthcore, then make sure you have some spare time to browse through them. Depthcore has grown a lot since its first establishment in 2002.

Visit Depthcore – http://depthcore.com

The Raster Group

The Raster Group was created in 2001 and is more targeted to digital art and drawings however you will see some other types of art in there chapters as well. Similar to depthcore, Raster is comprised of a group of artists showing their best work.

slashTHREE

slashTHREE is much like the others however containing a different collective of artists and designers. They feature graphics, artwork, music, photography, and even motion videos. One noticeable feature is their forum. Other artists and designers are able to talk to each other and network and even submit artwork to their art packs.

Behance Network

Behance Network is a community that holds a lot of portfolios of designers and artists. They contain many different types of artists, from graphics, and all the way to interior design. If you’re a designer, you should check the portfolios here and even apply for one as they also have a job board that you can check out and even employers themselves will seek for potential workers here.

deviantART

Deviantart is probably the most popular art community that’s out there. Being a very public place, any type of art is posted here. However, some of the quality of the work may not be as great as the other design community listed. (That’s purely based on the fact that deviantart has more quantity of works than the other communities)

deviantART is also a great center for resources and tutorials. Many artists contribute and share their works and resources so others can use them and make great work from them. You can also join communities and groups so you can be around other artists and designers that have similar interests as you.

One of my favorite feature of deviantART is the ability to favorite works and follow artists. With this feature you can always be updated when your favorite artists post a new piece of work or also view your gallery of favorites for inspiration.

Design Flavr

DesignFlavr is not really a community nor a group, but another inspirational design gallery site. I added this in here because it is also another great source of inspiration and showcases art of many different fields. Digital, Web, CG, Flash, Illustrations, and more. You can submit your own, and be featured here as well.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my post about design communities. These art groups and communities always showcases great work since the submissions to the packs and chapters are selectively chosen and filtered to show the best ones. Thanks for subscribing and following my inspiration posts. If you have other communities in mind, leave a comment and share a link. I’ll see you again next Monday.

For this week, I want to share 5 blogs that I usually visit everyday for tips, inspiration, resources, and sometimes I even get sidetracked to even more leads for inspiration and more.

1. Abduzeedo – http://abduzeedo.com

Abduzeedo is really awesome for its variety and broadness (although still maintaining to its niche of graphic design, inspiration, and tutorials). It has numerous links, articles, tutorials, and interviews where you can just get lost the whole day just browsing this site and going through the links. One of my favorite parts of the site is the “Daily Inspiration” posts that comes up…daily. Basically people start sending their links and they hand select a few to show up as their daily inspiration. Participating in this can get your name out as well as seeing other works out there that may inspire you to make something. The tutorials here are well written and the resources you can find here are very useful for commercial or personal use depending on their license.

In addition, they recently redesigned the blog, and it’s looking very smooth.

2. The Strange Attractor – http://thestrangeattractor.net

A simple blog that shares some inspirational pieces from artists around the world. Very nice if you’re looking for different types of art, design, and different forms of media. I’m not so exposed regular to these genre of art, however, this site fills in those gaps for me. It’s one of those sites where you can’t really stop on page one.

3. Buamai – http://buamai.com

Similar to The Strange Attractor, Buamai features more of a thumbnail gallery and a random one at that. It’s not really just art, but other pictures as well. Nevertheless, art and inspirational pictures that you can spark ideas from.

4. DesignIsKinky – http://designiskinky.com

Don’t be so fooled by its name. It’s nothing sexual at all. An Australian site, but it shows different designs and media arts from different places. Not always my taste, but it’s best to expose oneself to different types of art rather than just graphic design.

5. TUTS+ Network – http://tutsplus.com

Probably one of my favorite sites to go to. Tutorials, resources, interviews, all in one place. The best part of this network is the multiple branches of it. Photoshop, Vector, After Effects, CG, and Programming. Lots of tutorials, resources, and inspiration can be found here. The staff that’s running this network have done a lot to contribute and create a community that many designers follows.

Conclusion

Those are my hot spots blogs and sites that I visit regularly for some ideas or whenever I’m bored. If you have a favorite place to visit, post yours, and I’ll mention it in another roundup in the future to thank you.

And yes, I purposely put the date on this blog for February 22nd. It’s my way to sneakily put this in. Thanks for visiting.

Design galleries are very popular these days.  Perhaps way too popular.  It seems like every so often you will see sites similar to these that pop out of nowhere, and they would either be the same category, or something different.  Regardless of it being trendy, overused, and abused, I have to admit that these design galleries make it so much easier to gain inspiration, references, and you can also learn from them and enhance your skills in design.

Here are two galleries, that I personally use for inspiration and ideas.

Creattica

One of my favorite galleries that I always visit for inspiration for things like logos, business cards, and Photoshop work would have to be Creattica.  Creattica contains all different type of graphics from logos to even flash work.  The gallery also features a section where anyone can upload their work to the site and get featured once it has been cleared by the administrators.  You can also sign up and rank other people’s work.

As a result, this gallery site can turn into a place to get critiques and help from others.

Inspirationti.me

Inspirationti.me is a very unique site.  One of the first things that really got me to remember this site was the domain name.  By having a .me instead of .com, it’s very easy to remember since it spells out “Inspiration Time“.  This gallery site is geared more towards web design.  The examples they show at the site helps me a lot to pick the sites that I like to use for inspiration since it saves me time without having to click on every link to see the site.

With the gallery being nicely categorized such as icons, huge typography, and even colors, it’s easy for anyone to search through the site to find the inspiration you need.

Design galleries are great to have in your arsenal.  There are many out there that cover a variety of categories: Web Design, Icons, Fonts, and Illustrations.  In the near future, I will be releasing one as well.  I’m not exactly sure what it’ll be about, but I’ll be making the addition when the time comes.

I hope you enjoy this week’s Mundane Monday, and that you will collect all these inspirational resources into one archive to have one powerful library of references.

If you have any galleries that you like to share, feel free to comment and share the link.