17 Outstanding Sources of Advertising Inspiration

By Steven Snell | Published August 12th, 2009 in Inspiration

Advertisements can also be an excellent source of design inspiration in part because of the creativity that many ads exhibit. If you would like to find more inspiration from advertisements, the sites featured in this post will provide you with a great start.

Ads of the World

Ads of the World is a showcase of advertisements. There is a lot of great work to be seen on the site, and it also includes a blog and forum.

Ads of the World

Adland

The Adland blog features advertisements, including a lot of video. The archives are categorized so you can browse through print, radio, television commercials, and more.

Adland

Adverbox

Adverbox is a popular advertising blog that reaches over 9,000 subscribers.

Adverbox

The Inspiration Room Daily

The Inspiration Room Daily frequently posts inspiration from design, print, commercials, music videos and more.

The Inspiration Room

Design You Trust

Design You Trust showcases user-submitted design. The advertising category is a great place to get some inspiration.

Design You Trust

AdForum

AdForum contains 90,000 ads and provides information on 20,000 advertising agencies. Ads can be search by media type, date range, country, ad agency, and more.

AdForum

Behance Network

The Behance Network provides designers and creatives with a place to display their work. You can browse the Advertising category to see inspirational work from Behance members.

Behance Network

The Advertising Archives

The Advertising Archives is a searchable database of 50,000 print ads. You’ll need to register to view ads full size.

The Advertising Archives

Ad*Access

The Ad*Access project is part of the Duke University Library. It maintains a database of over 7,000 advertisements from 1911 to 1955.

Ad*Access

Adflip

Adflip is a database of print ads. You can browse by decade, category, what’s hot, or you can search by keyword.

Adflip

Coloribus

Coloribus includes more than 2,000,000 ads in its database. You can search by keyword or browse by category, brand, country, or agency.

Coloribus

Adaholic

Adaholic is a searchable database of magazine ads. The ads can also be browsed by category and prints can be purchased.

Adaholic

Creativity Online

Creativity Online showcases advertisements of various types.

Creativity Online

The Ad Feed

The Ad Feed is a gallery site that showcases excellent advertisements in print and video. The site hasn’t been updated in a few months but the archives contain some interesting and inspiring work.

The Ad Feed

adverlicio.us

adverlicio.us is a blog that showcases ads of differnt kinds. The archives can be browsed industry, brand, celebrity, or size.

adverlicio.us

I Believe in Advertising

I Believe in Advertising is a blog the features various advertisements. The site has been around since 2006 and has a lot in the archives.

I Believe in Advertising

AdGoodness

AdGoodness has not been updated in a few months, but the archives include inspiration from commercials, film, animation and more.

AdGoodness

For more design inspiration please see:


37 Comments
  1. Dany on August 13th, 2009

    Thanks for this selection! But your forget my website! http://dyvantity.com (ok, ok, it’s in French… but there’s no need to read when it’s a beautiful campaign!)

    @dyvantity

  2. Victoria Web on August 13th, 2009

    This post is great, advertising can be some of the most creative, random and brilliant ideas which project a brand or image.

  3. adverlicious on August 13th, 2009

    Thanks for highlighting my collection of online ads, http://adverlicio.us!

  4. alexandre on August 13th, 2009

    Excellent!

  5. [...] 17 Outstanding Sources Of Advertising Inspiration [...]

  6. Bendesign on August 13th, 2009

    Great source for inspiration. Thank you.

  7. Danny | dannyhinde.com on August 13th, 2009

    Use ad’s of the world a lot, but most of the others here are new to me. Good selection.

  8. [...] 17 Outstanding Sources of Advertising Inspiration http://designm.ag/inspiration/advertising/ Posted on Thu 13 Aug 21:58 retweet 0 votes RT @ekkalak: 17 Outstanding Sources of Advertising [...]

  9. Dainis Graveris on August 14th, 2009

    Bookmarked already – advertisment creators usually are very well paid and talented designers, so I really believe such advertising sites can be beautiful inspiration for fresh ideas!

  10. Rahul - Web Guru on August 15th, 2009

    Awesome advertisement inspiration. Thanks for the share.

  11. Sam Logan on August 15th, 2009

    I agree with Dainis, some of the most talented graphic designers are advertisment designers. Thanks for posting this great resource for future inspiration on upcoming projects.

  12. [...] Outstanding Sources of Advertising Inspiration “Advertisements can also be an excellent source of design inspiration in part because of the creativity that many ads exhibit. If you would like to find more inspiration from advertisements, the sites featured in this post will provide you with a great start.” [...]

  13. [...] Outstanding Sources of Advertising Inspiration “Advertisements can also be an excellent source of design inspiration in part because of the creativity that many ads exhibit. If you would like to find more inspiration from advertisements, the sites featured in this post will provide you with a great start.” [...]

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  17. Tanay | TJDzine on August 19th, 2009

    An excellent collection. I have only used ads of the world before. Will make sure to check some of the others out.

  18. Minted advertising on August 19th, 2009

    Love the creativity. This is a awsome sight!

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  21. Joseph Maguire on August 20th, 2009

    just a side note I also run an ad blog http://www.adbrandetc.com please follow!

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  23. Ronald Nunez on August 23rd, 2009

    The ads are really greatand provide a great help for inspirations. Thanks for posting

  24. web design Surrey on August 25th, 2009

    Well done on a really good set of links, of those you have added, we reckon the one that is most useful is the advertising archives

  25. mlgreen8753 on August 25th, 2009

    Those are some great resources that copywriters and advertising agencies can use to get ideas. I love study advertisments. One of my favorite things to do is study the video ads on Adwido.

  26. David Perel on August 25th, 2009

    Lol, I discovered Ads of the World about 2 years ago and since then always ‘assumed’ that it was the only Ad site on the net. How naive can one be?

    Nice collection Steven.

  27. Steven Snell on August 25th, 2009

    Hey everyone, thanks for the great feedback on this post.

    David,
    Yeah, it was a long time before I knew about any others aside from Ads of the World. I had to seek them out.

  28. [...] 17 Outstanding Sources of Advertising Inspiration from DesignM.ag – again, not really free stuff, but inspiration is a good thing to have! [...]

  29. tony jones on August 28th, 2009

    Here is one I like as it covers ad news like Drudge.

    http://www.adrant.com

    There are a few creative links there as well, but mostly news happenings.

    I check it throughout the day.

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  32. Kern on February 28th, 2010

    With an ad weary public, ads have to be more creative than ever before in order to have any effectiveness. The visual part of the ad has to create a “promise” from a subliminal standpoint. The words that accompany it must reinforce that message.

  33. egypwebdesign on March 1st, 2010

    nice ads collection !!!

  34. BASHIR BALA SAULAWA on March 1st, 2010

    Ads are very important when it comes to Advertising Inspiration. Ads tells more than the words could ever explain. Thanks to my people.

  35. sammyboy256 on May 4th, 2010

    you know most advertisement do not not just happen in the name of business but building a greater business for the people around you to know that yes, what you are advertising must be a better one. so i think advertising is a precious and a good thing to do in the right time of the day….goodluck in your business advertisement!!!

  36. lv 2010 on August 4th, 2010

    Ads tells more than the words could ever explain. Thanks to my people.

  37. lv on August 4th, 2010

    nice job