Visual Inspiration Websites ( FFFFOUND! alternatives )

December 04, 2022

Visual Inspiration Websites ( FFFFOUND! alternatives )

Cool Images!

n the first decade of the 2000s,, the way to discover "cool" images was FFFFOUND! ffffound dot com.

FFFFOUND! was a social bookmarking website for sharing already existing images on the Internet. FFFFOUND! was established by Yosuke Abe and Keita Kitamura of Tha, a Japanese web development company owned by Yugo Nakamura. It went offline in 2017 (Wikipedia)

The main thing about FFFFOUND! was that the image-sharers were mostly graphic designers, hand-picked by the team behind FFFFOUND!, so most of the images were super cool and a form of reading the trends on design.

Fortune-telling for the arts.

It appeared on my timeline in Twitter on the topic of alternatives to the deceased FFFFOUND! (begun by designer David McGillivray on Twitter @dmcgco ) and the people who replied listed some alternatives. I gathered them here. I am listing only the free ones. I am adding Visual Journal because is very minimalistic and gathers imagery of graphic design and branding.

And without further ado, let's get started (as the YouTubers say).

1.- Are.na:

Are.na is:
1. online software for saving and organizing the content that is important to you
2. a toolkit for assembling new worlds from the scraps of the old

I am using Are.na and the cool thing is designers are using it a lot, so I can learn from them. For example, Jarrett Fuller from the podcast Scratching the Surface is posting stuff there. I recommend his podcast, by the way. The useful thing is not to follow the cool people because are cool. Most of them post images they use later on in their works or articles, so you can get a glimpse of the trends in design.

The free option is limited to 200 total blocks.

Link: https://www.are.na/

2.- This isn’t Happiness™
Art, Photography, Design & Disappointment™

This is an old one and still works since 2006.

I used to love the sister site: www.nevver.com which features mostly pictures from films paired with a song.

Thanks to this website I learned about the music of the 60s and 70s. That is the way I discovered Alla Pugacheva's Million Roses, the song the astronauts sing in the 2020 movie, Sputnik (Миллион, миллион, миллион алых роз).

Both websites are maintained by Peteski @itspeteski on Twitter. He is the picker of the images and his taste is superb.

Link: https://thisisnthappiness.com/

3.- Pinterest:

It is an obvious one and you must already know it.

Not much to say about it.

Good for discovering things, but it is a little too crowded.

Link: www.pinterest.com

4.- Ffffound Tumblr:

I do not know if it has some relation with the original FFFFOUND!, but here they are posts taken from the former FFFFOUND! for you to watch. I suppose is an archive, never deleted. The last post date is 2017, which is the date of the end of FFFFOUND!

Link: https://ffound.tumblr.com/

5.- Same Energy

Same Energy is a visual search engine. You can use it to find beautiful art, photography, decoration ideas, or anything else.

Made by Jacob Jackson @jbfja

Link: https://same.energy/

6.- Andy's World

A website for collecting images. Every once in a while images are selected for the front page.

Link: https://andys.world/

7.- My Tumblr is Better than yours:

"...my tumblr is better than yours is a mood board! I do not own the stuff I post, otherwise marked. I always try to link the images to their creators website or the website where I found it."

Link: https://my-tumblrisbetterthanyours.tumblr.com/

8.- Design Inspiration

Save & explore ideas that inspire your creativity. You can search by color.

Link: https://www.designspiration.com/

9.- Savee.it

Browse and save curated inspiration from designers all around the world. You can make private boards public and there is a Pro (paid) tier.

Link: https://savee.it/

10.- Visual Journal

Visual Journal features, through a personal and accurate research by Alessandro Scarpellini (Aesse Twitter @aessestudio) , the best branding and graphic design projects from all over the world.

Link: https://visualjournal.it/

11.- https://join.cosmos.so/