What magazines Graphic Designers read:

Learning more about Design (not the tools but the trade)

Top Design Schools - Check iTunesU to see if these schools offer any free podcasts about design too

Portfolio Sites

Blog Sites for Designers

As a designer, I like to post imaginative designs. Check out some of these. Content is arbitrary. Look at the design of them.

Inspirational Sites:

I really would love to piece something together like this for a student organizational site or have a contest where kids make a site similar to this that links to the different things that make up what their perspective on life is.

Wildcard - Who said graphic design has to be static? I love watching the ribbon unfurl on this first gallery.

LAB - Mathieu Badimon - More interesting graphic web design that is clickable. Fascinating stuff.

Dave Werner's Portfolio - I like this one because not only does he showcase his portfolio but he also provides a video for his items that includes why he used certain designs in his print work. Very educational!!

Austin Shaw - a website of graphic design boards and personal galleries of Austin Shaw. If you are a graphic designer, you need to start building your own personal profile of work to showcase your talents.

Business Card Gallery - Just what it says. Get an idea of the different types of interestingly designed business cards out there.

ZeFrank - I like to build my own kaleidoscope of color using this site. Click on a shape and drag it to the "radar" circle on the left to watch what it makes in the circle on the right.

Color Scheme Generator - It used to be that you had to pay a few hundred bucks out to get a color tag (a book or chain of colored tabs for getting schemes together). Now this is a really great site not only for graphic designers but any visual designer.

Pick a color and it provides the other colors that contrast or compliment the shade you select. This is a bookmark favorite! < a keeper!

Tutorial Links:

Photoshop Tutorials - Any site that provides really great training on Photoshop and the extreme ways to use it will always be top in my list.

I learned on here how to make a tattoo look real using layer masks.

PhotoJoJo - more information about photo-editing but also about photo taking. Sign up for the very informative newsletter as well. Check out the archives for interesting tutorials too.

Graphic Design.com - Free online tutorials for Photoshop layer effects and masks.

Scott Kelby - Scott Kelby is the Photoshop Guru. He has released several books including Down & Dirty Tricks with Photoshop which was like my Photoshop bible for several years. He has tons of great resources and ideas on his site.

Top 100 Font Downloads - There is nothing like hunting down the font you need and finding that not only do you have to go through leaps and bounds to install it but you have to pay $32.95 for it. Not at this site. Free fonts. Updated weekly.

TypeNow.net - Movie theme and Album art fonts. Free too.

Free Tools Online - Don't have Photoshop at home? No problem! There are alternatives!

Paint Net - Free tool for downloading and running on your computer. This one looks and feels the most like Photoshop but is free.

GIMP - Open source shareware application that allows you to edit photos at home.

GIMP Tutorial Site

Splashup - Newer online tool for not only photo-editing but sharing in Picasa and Facebook.

Plus do a Google search for "free, online, photo editor" to find some web-based alternatives. There are many!