Inspiration to me comes in visual forms: pictures, videos, graphic design.

It also can be discovered in words: novels, articles, essays, quotes.

We need inspiration in order to create; to create well and to create proud.

Inspiration leads us to new ideas, educates us, and takes us to places we couldn’t imagine before.

When there’s all that to gain, how can you not actively seek out inspiration?

Lately, I’ve done such seeking through two steady sources: Pinterest and Tumblr.

For those unfamiliar with either, Pinterest is like on online scrapbook or cork board.

You collect images, words, products, whatever from around the web and “pin” them to specific boards you’ve set up. For instance as you see there I have: design, food, photography, etc.

You organize all these bits however you’d like. Then, when you need to recall something – a recipe, a landscape photo of the Eiffel Tower – you just go to wherever you stored it and pull it back up. Also, Pinterest is really good about tacking on the original URL from wherever you first grabbed that nugget, so you can always go back to the right place for reference.

Tumblr, on the other hand, is less about organizing your little nuggets, and more about creating a visual inspiration diary.

Or at least, that’s how I use it.

And therein lies the real beauty of Tumblr: It can be molded to fit almost any need you have.

A key aspect of using Tumblr is re-blogging other posts (which is where the inspiration comes in for me). I don’t put too much original content onto Tumblr. Instead, I go around to other people’s Tumblr blogs, and re-post images or quotes that they have first come across to my own blog.

Then my followers can come and do the same from anything I have posted. Pretty soon, you have this impressive tumbling (see what I did there) collection of inspiration.

Have a caught your interest? Both of those are rather brief summaries of how each respective site works, but it gives you a general idea.

If you want, check out my two accounts – Tumblr (here) and Pinterest (here) – and then sign up as well.

Then, post a link to your pages in the comment section below. I’d love to see what inspires you!