I’m Allison Stadd, drummer turned CMO, and I write for people who want the way we work to work for us.
This issue’s soundtrack:
If the internet is a giant, smelly, rusted-out dumpster, you can either steer clear entirely and seal yourself inside an off-the-grid sensory deprivation chamber, OR you can put a fiercely effective filter in place and collect your own treasures from the trash in a tidy recycling bin.
But dumpster diving is hard work.
It’s time-consuming, requires rolling your sleeves up and wearing gloves and comfortable shoes, and who know what horrors might drip their rotten juices onto your hands while you’re grasping for salvageable somethings.
It’s worth it.
The carefully collected contents of your internet recycling bin power your differentiator: your taste.
But it requires knowing which dumpsters are worth the diving. Garbage in, garbage out.
And there’s a lot of garbage these days.
I do much junk collection for my twice-monthly The Creativity of Work roundups. So I’ve developed a finely calibrated flashlight for spotting usable goods.
Below, my 27 favorite online sources for creative inspiration and idea hunting, organized by category:
Cosmos: a treasure trove of images you can search by words, hex codes, or categories, with or without AI
Public Domain Image Archive: a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images
Smithsonian Open Access: 5M+ images free to use and searchable across all 21 Smithsonian institutions
Savee: human-curated visual references for designers; its "More Like This" button works like Spotify Radio for imagery
Kaboompics: free stock photography created by Polish photographer Karolina Grabowska; you can search or browse by word, category, or color
Leica Fotografie International: a beautiful gallery of the best Leica photography from around the world
Antislop: a database and daily newsletter featuring lectures, essays, speeches & videos plus their key highlights from acclaimed writers and original thinkers
Creative Mornings: breakfast lectures series, virtual field trips, and online community featuring creative inspiration (I had a chance to speak at the Philly chapter of Creative Mornings this year)
Dense Discovery: thoughtful links across design, tech, culture and art, hand-picked weekly to inspire reflection
Billy Oppenheimer: research assistant to Ryan Holiday and Rick Rubin (what a combo!); every Sunday, around 6 PM (CT), his “SIX at 6” newsletter includes fascinating, brain-expanding tidbits that’ll send you down rabbit holes
A Thing or Two: 10 things Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo are excited about, delivered on Mondays since 2012
Swissmiss: an “online garden” Tina Roth Eisenberg started in 2005 and has lovingly tended to ever since
Creative Factor: weekly personal stories of creative professionals, everyone from the Chief Design Officer at Rivian to Patagonia’s Head of Photography
The Browser: five hand-picked, wide-ranging articles a day, running since 2008
Recomendo: six recommendations every Sunday from Kevin Kelly (Wired magazine cofounder), Mark Frauenfelder (co-owner of Boing Boing), and Claudia Dawson
Austin Kleon: an eclectic weekly newsletter of “10 things worth sharing” by the author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!
Sublime: self-described as “the knowledge tool that sparks creativity”; lets you capture and categorize any form of media and browse other people’s public collections; I’ve been enchanted by founder Sari Azout for years
Are.na: an “Internet memory palace”; non-gross online software for saving and organizing content
Feedly: I’ve been a Feedly power user for years, since the demise of Google Reader; in addition to curating and following (and creating, if you’re a paid user!) RSS feeds you can use it to explore by any topic
AIGA Eye on Design: the best new work from the most exciting designers today, curated by the oldest and largest not-for-profit design organization in the U.S.
Designboom: publishing the latest in the fields of architecture, design, technology & art for 20 years
Design Milk: “what’s cool and what’s next” in architecture, interior design, automotive, fashion, technology & art, also 20 years old
Colossal: another visual art, design and culture site, launched in 2010 by writer and curator Christopher Jobson
It’s Nice That: one of the leading platforms globally for the creative community, since 2007
The Marginalian: deep, long-form essays exploring the intersections of art, science, philosophy, poetry, and the human condition
Ryan Holiday: a bestselling author (plus bookstore owner!) and former marketer writing about practical philosophy, making ancient Stoicism applicable to modern life
Psyche: a digital magazine by the team behind Aeon dedicated to “helping you know yourself and live well”
Not only does this digital dumpster diving keep me well-nourished with food for thought, and provide me with material to make my writing fresh.
It also keeps my hope alive for a digitally connected world that does more good than harm; that surfaces thought-provoking, original ideas and artifacts for curious folks to skim from and spark their own imaginations.
An internet unpolluted by the CO2 of slop that’s burned so many holes in our content ozone.
One that connects people not to bait and rile each other but to broaden perspectives and add texture to our thinking.
Idea hunting, and contributing ideas for hunters to exhume, feel like two steps toward that vision.
Have a great week,
Allison
P.S. Paid subscribers get access to:
The Workroom 🔐, a bank of juicy extras like templates, resources & discounts I update regularly. Every tool & perk in this archive is built from almost 20 years inside some of the most high-growth, fast-paced companies in the country (Anheuser-Busch InBev, Shake Shack, Sweetgreen, Shipt, BarkBox).
The Creativity of Work Private Chat 💬, where I share back-channel job opportunities I hear about through my own network and can connect you to directly.
Folks across 42 U.S. states and 73 countries from companies like LVMH, Unilever, Salesforce, The Atlantic, and The Home Depot are reading along. You in?
🎧 Listen to The Creativity of Work playlist
🔗 Hang out with me on LinkedIn for more creative takes on leadership and marketing
☎️ Book an Office Hours session with me for a fun, fresh-eyed 1-on-1 on Leadership & Career or Marketing
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