Dribbble became a staple for many designers. We scrolled endlessly, saved our favorites, and even posted a few. It was the promise of a better place where great ideas would thrive. Some of us even built freelance careeres of its job listings. 

While I still love places like Dribbble for what they provided, and got many great ideas from them; nothing beats in production designs. Over the last three years I’ve transitioned to getting my inspiration from ideas that exist out in the world, not just pretty shots that display an idealized version of what a designer would have preferred to create. 

My phone has thousands of saved screenshots, and I make use of sites like Mobbin to look for examples of UI and UX based on what’s been tested and published. That’s not perfect, of course. Copying some else’s design without understanding the context of why it was created has its risks. But as I’m looking for design ideas it helps to see what else exists out in the world and use that to push my own concepts forward.