There are hundreds of inspirational design galleries available on the internet, but the best design inspiration sites are driven by designers. It is great to find sites that allow users to submit their work and share it with our design community. What better way to be inspired than by other like designers! These sites also allow us to submit our work for critiquing and receive feedback from fellow designers. Please share your favorite design inspiration sites by leaving a comment.

Here are 30 sites that are fueled by user content.

In January I stumbled upon an internet contest and the grand prize seemed pretty awesome: Win a free trip to Sydney, Australia and work and play there for a year. I am not one to enter contests but this one just seemed too good to be true! So, I followed the entry requirements and made a 60 second entry video.

In February I received a phone call telling me I was a finalist in the Work and Play in Sydney contest (contest’s MySpace). It took my mind a quick second to process the phone call because I forgot I even entered!

Long story short: I will be moving to Sydney, Australia on July 19th. I am still in search for an in-house design position, but hopefully freelancing will get me by until I do find a design position in Sydney.

Here is my entry video. I can honestly say it is my best videography work (hence the shaky hand effect!), but it sure got the job done! (If you are reading this via RSS you can click here to view it in the web.)

I am Australia bound! I will be living (and hopefully working) in Sydney for at least a year. If you currently live in Sydney or have visited Sydney in the past I’d love to hear about your experience and what you recommend I check out while I am there. Please feel free to share everything with me!

Lately many products have been releasing new retro/vintage packaging or reverting back to packaging from way back when. Retro designs and bright colors have been the latest trend in fashion as well as design for some time now and it seems to be leaking into packaging design as well. Most of the retro/vintage packaging in this post is limited edition or only available in certain states, stores, or countries. Nonetheless,  it is still awesome and refreshing to see some of your favorite products packaged differently. Here is a small collection products that have recently given us a blast from the past.