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Connie Malamed
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21 Ways To Get Visual Ideas

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21 Ways to Get Visual Ideas

When you’re stuck, in a rut or brain drained, it’s hard to be creative on demand. Here are some resources that may give you visual inspiration and visual ideas.

You may find inspiration for designing an entire course, a title screen, a job aid or a way to make an abstract concept concrete. Please share your favorite inspiration resources in the Comments section below.

1. Graphic Design Portfolios

Look through the portfolios of designers and artists at these sites, which serve as platforms to showcase creative work and collections. They can give you visual inspiration for layout, color palette and overall design.

2. Magazines

Browse online and print magazines to observe the layout, typography and ideas used in advertisements. These can provide visual ideas for using a magazine layout for eLearning and for print materials, such as job aids and newsletters.

3. Design Museums

Museums are places for visual inspiration. Although we rarely design environments, walking through museums in person or online may be the catalyst you need.

4. Advertising

These sites may help you with web design if you’re creating a learning portal. Or they may present visual ideas that you can use in web page style eLearning, similar to the pages in Articulate Rise.

5. Retro Design

Certain audiences and content lend themselves to a retro or vintage look. Study examples at these sites to see the attributes you can use for a retro look.

6. Information Graphics and Visualizations

Real infographics (not infoposters) could be used more frequently to facilitate learning. Perhaps you’ll find a solution to your problem by viewing the wonderful variety found at these sites.

7. Animation

Even if you don’t plan on creating motion graphics, animations can show effective ways to visualize concepts.

visual-ideas38. Poster Design

9. Stock Photo Sites

Search stock photo sites and image galleries for concepts that have you stumped. You don’t necessarily need to buy or use an image. This is a way you can see how others are visualizing a concept in ways you hadn’t imagined. It’s a good starting point for ideas to flourish. See my critical look at stock photos: 21 Reasons Stock Photos Make Me Cry. And also read about some ways to improve stock photos.

10. Typography

There’s so much to learn about type. Before you use it as a dominant graphical element, check these sites for inspiration. In addition, see What Font Should I Use? for the basics of typography. If you must manage a lot of text, see Designing Text-based Information.

11. Graphic Design Around the World

11. “Best Designed” Websites

12. Visual Design Books

Start a collection of visual design books that have lots of examples for inspiration. Buying used books through online stores reduces costs.

visual-ideas413. Photography

14. Comics

Most people appreciate that storytelling through comics appeals to many learners. It’s also a more complex style than meets the eye. Here are some sites to check out the visual language and storytelling features of comics. Also see this interview for some insight into creating comics: Using a Comic Book Style for Learning.

15. Interactive Graphics

16. PowerPoint & Keynote Slide Decks

visual-ideas217. Album and CD Covers

18. Label Design and Packaging

19. Book Cover Designs

20. Children’s Books

21. Playing Card Design

Some learning games lend themselves to playing card activities (physical or digital). Here are ideas for designing the cards.

Comments

  1. Connie Malamed says

    Hi Thomas,
    What you’re doing is a great example of how we can learn from the design all around us. It sure makes watching commercials more interesting! Try it with the sound down too.
    Connie

  2. Thomas says

    Connie, thanks so much for this list. Since landing a full-time position as an instructional designer, I find myself even more enthralled these days with tv commercials. The colors, typography, camera angles, voiceovers or none, etc. The way images enter and exit the screen, how the commercial opens and closes, star-power or none. The medium definitely informs the modules I build for my company’s customer service eLearning content.

  6. Gayle Stone says

    Thank you for this information Connie! I am returning to elearning after a few years, and my main concern is about presentation and graphic design. So this is just what I wanted!

    Cheers for this

  8. Jenny S. says

    Awesome list Connie! I can’t wait to share this with my team.

    I appreciate everyone else’s additional sites and ideas for inspiration.

  9. Connie Malamed says

    Great addition, Vince! I used to frequent Zen Garden back in the day, but haven’t been there in a long time. Can’t wait to check it out. Thanks for sharing.
    Connie

  11. Joe Kirby says

    Connie,

    Good newsletter.

    I use google images all the time as an aid to visualization. It is a great way to get ideas, and saves me a lot of time.

    For stock photos with rights for use, Wylio is my go to site.

  12. Vince Sutherland says

    One of my all time favorites for design concepts has been The Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com/), which started out as a competition to see how to effectively use CSS in web design. The creativity is astounding and has so many good ideas / concepts.

  14. Jane Bozarth says

    A couple more:
    Good stuff, Connie! Thanks. Here are a couple more ideas:

    1. A friend recently sent around an online quiz that was basically free-association, with the provision that answers be only nouns: “What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word idea…motivate…safety…, etc.” Afterward she said she was using the results to get ideas for visuals for an eLearning program.
    2. I know you (Connie) share my interest in sketchnoting I’ve been working on teaching myself to sketchnote and find looking at other’s work to be really useful. It’s helping me to expand my “visual vocabulary” particularly in thinking of images to represent concepts. Google will get you lots of good examples; I especially like the entries for the “Sketchnotes Challenge”.

  15. Leslie says

    Hi, Connie

    Thank you for putting together this AWESOME list of resources! I’ll definitely be digging through these over the next few weeks.

    Re: Google Docs / clipping / Evernote … I’m a HUGE fan of OneNote (which most people have on their computers and never use!)

    All the best,
    Leslie

  17. Jennifer Kennedy says

    Great ideas! I’ve recently started a Google Doc where I keep all of my inspiration. So, if I’m searching around the net, I take a quick screenshot and add to the doc — just for future reference.

    And, you can take design ideas from loads of different places — I was just inspired by the Loews Hotel website to add text to my photos!

    Thanks for sharing.

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