As a designer it is always important to keep exploring new design ideas and improving your current design aesthetics. And there are now complete design community websites that are dedicated to bringing designers from all over the world in one place. Design community websites are a great way of interacting with other designers and looking at their work. Not only that, but you’ll often find employers searching these websites for their next superstar designer.
Design community websites also allow you to have a professional portfolio, which can be a great way to showcase your work. If you want to put your design work out there to be examined by others, and are keen to network with other designers, be sure to check the following design community websites out!
1. Behance
Behance has become the de-facto standard for designer portfolios. If you’re a digital media designer, it’s absolutely crucial for you to have a Behance profile. Fortunately, Behance is much more than just an online portfolio – it’s an active social network where users can comment on others’ work, follow other designers and have their own work ‘appreciated’. There are also regular job listings on this website from top companies, so it’s easier for you to get in touch with some very good design agencies.
Creating a profile on Behance is extremely easy and needless to say, every designer should do it. It’s a great way to display your work and interact with other designers.
2. Dribbble
Dribbble is a great place to get design inspiration. It is a community-driven website where all sorts of visual creators share their work in the form of ‘shots’ – screenshots of designs if you will. So it’s not a fully-featured portfolio website like Behance, but that’s not the whole point of it anyway. Dribbble is backed by a community of designers, and that community is what makes this website stand out.
This is a great website that you can treat as your secondary portfolio. The real purpose of Dribble is to network with other designers, learn and possibly even find work. There’s a dedicated jobs marketplace where you can either post a job or get hired yourself.
Dribbble is one of the best to get design inspiration. The sign-up process is pretty hassle-free and the basic account is absolutely free. For a small fee you can sign up for the Pro account which lets you chat with other designers.
3. DeviantArt
DeviantArt has a huge community of photographers, artists, craftsmen, designers and people of other creative interests. It isn’t as design-focused as the aforementioned websites, but it’s still a great place to learn and interact with creative minds. Because of the variety of people here, you will find nearly every medium of art on the website. The website does have a dedicated portfolio section where you can show off your own work, but we’d recommend that you go for Behance if you plan to use that portfolio for professional work.