If you’re a designer looking for online communities where you can share your ideas and creations or find others with common interests to co-create with, check out design:related. I know, with so many social networks and design sites up, you may not feel like signing up for yet another site, but this could be promising.

This community site allows for the usual uploading of your profile along with your portfolio of projects you’re working on - whether it be product design, book art, web site design, fashion, or whatever, it’s for creatives to share. What’s different is a section dedicated to “inspirations” where you can link to whatever you find as your inspiration i.e, another designer, or a book, website, film, etc. basically anything/one you find inspirational. It really extends the network a bit further allowing for people to really connect through common interests and work. Other design related sections - a job board and digg-like news board - can be contributed by community members.

It’s still fairly new, having started up early this year, so it’s still growing. But it could prove useful to connect and share with other like-minded creatives.

One NYC designer signed up for design:related and another design community network, Behance, to compare the two sites. Read his post and subsequent follow-ups. Or, try for yourself and see which site works best for you.