ART + DESIGN + CULTURE BLOGS
Swiss Miss Tina Roth Eisenberg's blog on all things design.
Design Observer Great writing on design and culture.
Brain Pickings Ideas, inspiration and knowledge spanning across art, science, history, philosophy, politics and so much more. Curated by Maria Popova.
Booooooom An amazing blog of contemporary art & design curated by Jeff Hamada.
Present&Correct Aside from their drool worthy selection of vintage stationary. P&C is always posting great vintage design ephemera on their blog.
But Does it Float Inspiring imagery across a variety of art and design media.
September Industry Envy inducing international design journal.
Graphic Exchange Top-notch design blog that showcases branding, print, packaging, objects, interiors and more.
CREATIVITY + BUSINESS BLOGS
99U Everything you need to make your ideas happen.
Design Sponge / Biz Ladies Great articles on running your business.
Rena Tom Writings on small biz topics by the always amazing Rena Tom of Makeshift Society.
CREATIVITY + BUSINESS BOOKS
Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro This is a no nonsense book about what it means to work as a designer with some great candid advice on interacting with clients, contracts and presenting design work.
Maximize Your Potential by Jocelyn K. Glei Full of useful, actionable advice to help you take things to the next level. Jocelyn K. Glei does an amazing job of editing these books.
Manage Your Day-to-Day by Jocelyn K. Glei A great book for creating a manageable workflow. It’s especially great if you feel like you have no time for doing your most creative work.
The Money Book by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’ Agnese If you have an irregular income, you NEED this book. It helps you figure out how to plan your life’s finances when you are not depending on an employer to do it for you.
Studio Culture by Adrian Shaughnessy An interview based book that shows you a candid look inside the making and running of some of the best studios around the globe.
Scratch your niche by Nate Burgos A great e-book that provides both inspiration and useful tools for creating a web-based project.
SOFTWARE THAT KEEPS ME UP AND RUNNING
Dropmark Great for keeping talks, visual research and audio. Plus everything defaults to private unless you choose to share.
Transmit For FTP uploads.
Password1 Keeps all my passwords safe.
Evernote One of the few apps that have stood the test of time with me. I use it daily for writing, web research and keeping track of recipes.
Harvest I keep track of time and send out invoices with Harvest. Without them I'd never get paid.
Dropbox For sharing documents and files.
Mailchimp I use Mailchimp for my newsletter and mailing list. Is well designed and well priced, you really can't beat that.
Carbon Copy Cloner I use this for backing up my computer to an external hard drive. Daily.
Crash Plan Pro This backs up my machine in the background and keeps it safe in the clouds. Because, lets face it hard drives fail.
Gmail For...yep you guessed it, email.
RESOURCES OF RESOURCES
Artsy Is an online collection of Art, Artist, and Museums. They have a fantastic website that lets you discover, follow and learn.
Badass Lady Creatives A site and directory dedicated to featuring the work of badass ladies in the creative industries.
Inker Linker A great resource site created by Jessica Hische to help people find an awesome printer.
Chicago Artist Resource A fantastic resource that every artist in Chicago should know about.
Internet Archive A vast historical collection archived in a digital format.
Site Inspire Stellar collection of the best websites on the internet by Daniel Howells.
Design Feaster Is Design Feast's blog. I particularly love this giant list of creative conferences and gatherings.