Collated for the aspiring designers who often ask for advice on branding, visual identity design, and working as a graphic designer.

Logo design

The secret language of logos (something I wrote/narrated for the BBC)
Logo design: from concept to presentation (Sagi Haviv’s Domestika course)
LogoBook (a showcase of logos, symbols, & trademarks)
Logo Nature (a smaller online catalogue with some lovely examples)
The Logo Geek podcast (hosted by Ian Paget)
LogoArchive Shop (one of Richard Baird’s design endeavours)
Logotype masterclass (taught by Jessica Hische on Skillshare)
Canada Modern (Blair Thomson’s historical archive of Canadian trademarks)

Logo Design Love (a little side-project of mine, since 2008)

Design history

AIGA Design Archives (dating back to 1924)
archives.design (curated by Valery Marier)
International Advertising & Design Database (founded by Het ReclameArsenaal)
The People’s Graphic Design Archive (founded by Louise Sandhaus)
Graphic Design History Resources (compiled by We Made This)
Design Reviewed (an impressive collection from Matt Lamont)

Typography

Type Specimen (by Mark Boulton)
Fonts Knowledge (by the Google Fonts team)
Fontshare (free fonts by Indian Type Foundry)
ILT (the blog by John Boardley)
Typography principles (by Obys agency)
Letterform Archive (founded by Rob Saunders)
Typographica (by Stephen Coles & Caren Litherland)
Fonts In Use (by Nick Sherman, Stephen Coles, & Sam Berlow)
Free fonts (some interesting display fonts from Pixel Surplus)
Typography resources (from Jeremiah Shoaf, aka Typewolf)
Type Design Resources (from Justin Penner)

Type foundries

Type Foundry Directory (by Matthew Smith)
Type Foundries Archive (by Marcel Häusler, offline archive)
Type Foundry Index (by Mark Johnson & Thomas Drach)

PSD mockups

LiveSurface (the premium Illustrator plugin by Joshua Distler)
Mr.Mockup (PSDs by Noeeko)
Envato Elements (by Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, and Jun Rung)
Outdoor advertising mockups (free PSDs from Clear Channel UK)
Layers Design (premium, part of supply.family)
Yellow Images (thousands of object mockups)
Lstore Graphics (free and premium)
Mockup Cloud (free and premium)
Art Directed Mockups (premium with a few freebies)
Bendito Mockup (premium, by Al Alimón Studio)
The Mockups (premium, by The Brand Identity)
Mockup.Maison (premium selection from various cities)

Freepik (by Alejandro and Pablo Blanes, and Joaquin Cuenca)
Darkroom (very good mockups from sunny Melbourne)
Mockups Design (free, made by Andrew in Poland)
Unblast (mostly free, various design resources)

Design pricing

Icons & symbols

The Noun Project (founded by Sofya Polyakov & Edward Boatman)
Icons (free vector icons from Icons8) 
Ionicons (a smaller resource courtesy of the Ionic team)
Simple Icons (SVG icons/symbols for popular brands)
Heroicons (by the makers of Tailwind CSS)

Trademarking

Trademark basics (by the United States Patent & Trademark Office | USPTO)
Intellectual property: Trade marks (by GOV.UK)
Trade marks (by IP Australia)
Global Brand Database (by the World International Property Organization | WIPO)
History of trademarks (on Respect for Trademarks, by WIPO)

Client contracts

Researching

Focus groups are worthless (by Erika Hall)
Go to a dry cleaner and sit there (paraphrasing Bob Gill)

Brand strategy

Branding: In Five and a Half Steps (by Michael Johnson)
How strategic use of design can increase brand value (by Wanda Grimsgaard)
Mistakes in brand strategy (by Stef Hamerlinck)
A blueprint for building brand strategy (by Nomad Studio)
Using strategy in logo design (with Marty Neumeier)

Resource center for brand strategy (another from Stef Hamerlinck)
Marks and Maker (the brand strategy website of Melinda Livesy)
Positioning (by Al Ries & Jack Trout)

Brand naming

Eight principles of naming (by Nick Foley & Matt Gordon)
Naming a business (by Seth Godin)
How to get a name right (by Naresh Ramchandani)
Brand New Name (by Jeremy Miller)
Flexible brand names (on Logo Design Love)
iwantmyname.com (helpful for domain searches)
WIPO Global Brand Database (search trademarks internationally)
Online Etymology Dictionary (the history of English words)
Onym (by Greg Leppert & Willem Van Lancker)
Namecheap (where I source and buy domain names)

Photos, videos, & music

Unsplash (by Mikael & the team)
Burst (powered by Shopify)
Pexels (by Bruno & Ingo Joseph, & Daniel Frese)
Morguefile (founded by Michael Connors)
Depositphotos (free photos & videos from the commercial firm)
ISO Republic (various CC0 photos & videos)
LOC Prints & Photographs Catalog (check each image for usage rights)
Free illustrations (no photos here, but a lot of illustration work)
Nature Stock (nature photos and videos, created by Adrian Pelletier)
Mixkit (made by Envato Elements)
AShamaluevMusic (free background music by Aleksandr Shamaluev)
Upscale.media (an AI image upscaler, by PixelBin.io)
Edit • Photo (free online photo editor in your browser)
Videvo (free stock video footage and sound effects)

Identity compilations

The Brand Identity (resource for graphic design)
Brand New (opinions on brand identity work, from UnderConsideration)
Visuelle (curated by David Bennett)
BP&O (branding, packaging, and opinion, from Richard Baird)
Mirador (the image-hunting work of Say What Studio)
The Design Blog (curated by Ruby Bacanovic)
DoingCoolStuff (studio directory, from Jamie Samman)
Identity Designed (visual identity showcase, since 2010)

Presenting design

An insider’s guide to the design presentation (by Michael Johnson)
Brand identity style guides from around the world (on Logo Design Love)
www.brandingstyleguides.com (huge resource, needs sign-in)
Ways designers screw up client presentations (by Mike Monteiro)
Showing sketches to clients (on when it helps and when it doesn’t)
Brand guidelines (collated by Lily Scowen on Are.na)
iLovePDF (useful PDF tools from Marco Grossi)

Commercial printing

Paper Sizes (for international paper sizes, dimensions & formats)
Inker Linker (for finding recommended print companies, mostly US)
UK commerical printers (an old one of mine, still comes in handy)

Copywriters

Reed Words (London, New York, and Manchester)
Asbury & Asbury (Bollington)
totalcontent (Shakespeare country)
Cat Wall (Melbourne)
A manifesto on writing for design (by Jim Davies)
Manifesto Writing (a free resource by Lonnie Elliott)

Workspace

MacBook Pro (Apple)
32inch monitor (BenQ)
Microphone (FIFINE K688)
Webcam (Elgato Facecam Pro)
Audio interface (Elgato Wave XLR)
Lighting (Elgato key light)
Chair (Steelcase Gesture)

On life

A short lesson in perspective (by the late Linds Redding)
The School of Life (founded by Alain de Botton)

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For updates about this kind of thing, you might enjoy my free newsletter. Sent via Substack every month or three, archives are also available.

last page update: August 2024

David Airey
Brand identity design

Independent since 2005
Website hosted by Fused
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64 Beechfield Avenue
Bangor, County Down
Northern Ireland
BT19 7ZZ

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