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Something for Your Inspiration: 10 Iconic Names Every Successful Designer Should Know About

Whatever industry you belong to, there are always people whom you may follow for inspiration. There are always some iconic personalities nearby who can inspire you and whose example you can follow. The web design industry is no exception. We’ve got our own champions and iconic names that every beginner and even experienced web designer needs to follow.

Although it’s difficult to highlight a few names out of the hundreds of impressive personalities, we’ll make an attempt to introduce you to the 10 most notable web designers we think you should know about.

Top 10 Iconic Web Designers to Follow

If you are an artist, then it’s likely that you search for a gulp of inspiration every once in a while. If you are a web designer or a web developer launching dozens of new web projects monthly, then you will need to follow the example of iconic personalities belonging to your own niche. In this post, we have made up a list of the experienced and talented web designers who have managed to achieve success in their own niche. Let’s discover their success stories and get inspired by their examples.

Simon Collinson

simon collinson

Twitter: @colly

Simon Collinson is a designer, writer based in Nottingham, England. He shares his knowledge, experience, and skills through his own website. Also, he is an author of a series of books. Simon is a public speaker. You can often meet him speaking about a range of web design topics at conferences and other events. Simon organizes the annual New Adventures in Web Design event, which is held in his hometown in the UK.

Rob Janoff

rob janoff

Twitter: @robjanoff

Rob Janoff is mainly known as the designer of the well-known Apple logo. He has been involved actively in the development of Apple designs. The thing that inspires is that Rob needed only 14 days to create the legendary logo design, which is now recognized in all places on earth. Initially, Apple logo appeared at an ad agency named Regis McKenna. This happened back in 1977. Ever this that moment, the logo underwent a series of the major changes. The modern-day design of Apple’s logo stands out with its simplicity, which is also easy to recognize.

Chris Coyier

chris coyier

Twitter: @chriscoyier

Chris Coyier is the co-founder of CodePen.io. He is well-known as a CSS expert and HTML guru. Did you hear anything about CSS-tricks blog? You can find lots of guides, tutorials, and other useful pieces being written by Chris on the CSS blog. He is known as the author of a series of tutorials, websites, scripts, and other copies revealing how to code and improve web design skills.

Cameron Moll

cameron moll

Twitter: @cameronmoll

Cameron Moll is the US-based web designer who is known as the public speaker at multiple web design conferences around the world. Cameron shares his knowledge and experience on the Authentic Jobs website. He’s also famous for his collaboration on a range of books talking about different sides of the web design industry. As well as sharing written copies about web design, Cameron shares a series of typographical posters that are also worth your attention.

David Braun

david braun

Twitter: @davidbraun

David Braun is the CEO and co-founder of one of the largest digital marketplaces on the modern-day web – TemplateMonster. He launched the company as a startup back in 2002. That was the time when nobody knew about website template. Back then, PSD templates and flash-based technology ruled the web. It was David who came up with the idea to use pre-designed themes as the foundation of the future web resources. Today, TemplateMonster is one of the top marketplaces to which people refer in search of WordPress themes, eCommerce designs, blogging and business solutions, and a range of other products imaginable. Are you looking forward to launching a marketing agency or a web design studio? Consider using design studio WordPress themes . In fact, there are various types of products that are ready to be used for all purposes imaginable.

Karen McGrane

karen mcgrane

Twitter: @karenmcgrane

Karen McGrane is a content strategist and UX designers. As the motto on her Twitter page says: “On a good day, I make the web more awesome. On a bad day, I just make it suck less.” With over 15 years of experience of work in the web development niche, she is an expert in the launch of complicated websites. Today, Karen is the managing partner of Bond Art + Science. Also, she is known as the author of Content Strategy for Mobile.

Saul Bass

Saul Bass

Although Saul Bass is not related to the web design niche as we understand it today, he is one of the most notable figures of the last century that we simply cannot skip mentioning on this list. Saul Bass was an impressively talented personality whose work consisted of multiple aspects. He created graphic designs, movie posters, logos, and a whole lot of different types of artworks. The project that made him famous one day was the opening sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. Saul Bass spent 50 years of his life launching truly impressive projects and stopped only after his death.

Sarah Parmenter

sarah parmenter

Twitter: @sazzy

Sarah Parmenter is a designer, blogger, and public speaker. She is popular for her impressive designs for the web, iPhone, and iPad. In 2011, she received the “designer of the year” award. Also, Sarah is the owner of the design studio titled You Know Who. She is the co-host of the Happy Monday podcast. Sarah actively travels the world. You can often meet her speaking at the public events and web design conferences.

Dave Shea

dave shea

Twitter: @mezzoblue

Dave Shea is mainly known for his CSS Zen Garden project. It was Dave who started the movement from table-based web design to the CSS-based layout. Dave’s project gained demand among webmasters worldwide. It pushed the boundaries of the CSS possibilities. Ever since its launch, web designers started to experiment while launching designs that are built with CSS alone, thus making those more flexible and dynamic.

Vitaly Friedman

smashing mag

Twitter: @smashingmag

This is the last but not the least important name on this list. We guess that everyone who is interested in web design searches the web for the latest innovations in the industry has heard about Smashing Magazine. One of the most popular online magazines for web designers and developers is curated by Vitaly Friedman. Started as a small web design project, Smashing Magazine has grown into an immense platform where everyone related to the web design niche can find inspiration, useful guides, eBooks, expert opinion, workshops, conferences, and a whole lot of other valuable pieces of data.

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Over to you

Where do you find your web design inspiration? What iconic personalities do you follow and whose works do you use as an example for your own creative projects?

Helen Miller (TemplateMonster.com)

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