Best DIY Design Resources

We want to help business owners at any stage in any way we can. Sometimes the creative gusto gets throttled and you just want to build your own website, graphic design, or media. Good on you – here are a few design resources!

At our core, business owners and entrepreneurs, possess ingenuity, gusto, and outrageous optimism. We must have these impulses, or we would break under the pressures or quit after our early-stage stumbles. The stakes are so high! Nearly as high as our hopes and our passion. As owners, we must also communicate a vision; the root of the French word ‘entrepreneur’ likely originates from a Sanskrit word antarprerana which means ‘inner inspiration.’ To build teams and processes, we have to inspire others to hear our heartbeat. Our clients hire us to inspire and communicate their vision to their market. And sometimes, a meeting yields a different outcome. A potential client says, ‘Look, I can handle that web build’ or ‘I have a nephew who will handle the graphic design.’

Your Gusto Whispers

That entrepreneurial gusto whispers in our client’s ear: you got this- you can handle your own creative-in house – you can create your own marketing collateral and deploy your campaigns – you don’t need to hire anyone – DIY, dude!

an example we built: a concept piece for a marketing a hair salon

You Probably Can DIY

We totally understand this impulse. We hear it, too. We know what it’s like when you feel the revving roar of your inner gusto engine. A few months ago, I replaced my brake pads and rotors on my old Volvo wagon just because I could! Dragging the hydraulic jacks around, turning the sockets, and teaching my kids how to think through problems was worth the Saturday morning’s time investment. Sure, I saved a little money on labor. Truthfully, I made that decision because it was satisfying labor. Sometimes, you just want to roll up your sleeves and do your own project. Here are two things to consider:

think about different ways to represent typography
try not to replicate what everyone is doing – there is so much historical inspiration

Disclaimer

Below, we will outfit you with a few quality design resources. Before we do that, we should mention that using these tools will not ‘build a brand.’ Brand development is a different animal requiring significant conceptual understanding and a holistic deployment approach for companies wishing to win in their market. The world is still waiting for a great website where the user fills out drop-down menus, clicks a ‘submit’ button and whamo! a completely customized, developed brand strategy, voice, design elements, campaigns, social media content, etc. emerge in all the right formats.

No. Brand development requires educated/experienced brainpower – substantial human capital and many hours of intense labor. It’s like building a customized automobile from engineering concepts, design files, framing platform, and drivetrain down to decisions about leather stitching and cupholder placement. But – to stay within our metaphor, should you want to replace your brakes and rotors — these are a few quality design resources.

Nine Good Design Resources

Here are NINE resources to add momentum to your creative projects. We broke these resources out by project category. We hope these help you get down the road. A quick note: these design resources are meant to help you complete a design project, website, even get some media for your project. If you feel like you don’t want to tackle these projects or don’t have time – we can help you build something special.

GRAPHICS — colors, fonts, shapes
https://shapefactory.co
https://coolors.co
https://www.myfonts.com
https://www.fontspring.com
oh, and check out THIS great article with even more resources

MEDIA — good images
https://unsplash.com
pikwizard.com
https://stock.adobe.com
for even more great photography options -take a look at THIS

WEBSITES — easy to use platforms
https://wix.com
https://wordpress.com
https://squarespace.com

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