Redoing my island

[Timexturner]

So I want to redo my island, but I have no idea where to start, I moved all the villagers and the shops where I want them, but now I need some inspiration, like I wanna do kidcore but also like fairycore and a little bit of citycore too, but I dunno where to start at. Help.

 

[Radiant Dreamer]

honestly what helps me is getting on pinterest and the like and looking up acnh designs. like eventually i want to have a castle theme going with my main house, but i also want it kinda beach themed. sea shells are my jam, i collect them in real life, so i love the diys, especially the shell partition. love using those as fencing, it's so cute!

and also having small areas with a concrete idea in mind. like i have a little japanese onsen area on my island simply cuz it's so cute. i need to go find some inspiration for my farm and amusement park areas, right now i'm just moving everything so i have space to design. moving my huge 7x9 veggie patch and all the flowers around it was not fun. went through three shovels digging everything up, whee.

 

[squidney]

I always say start by planning the design layout of your resident services & airport. I would plan out your color scheme and patterns (like paths) before hand!

 

[Bizhiins]

What I do to find inspiration is visiting all sorts of dream towns! You get to see a ton of different varieties, walk around and take elements from different islands that you like.
i visited about 30 different ones while planning and saw very different islands each time. I took elements that I liked from each ones - like the amount of cliffs, location of shops, villager homes, flowers, etc. and am continually integrating that into my town.
I also took the time to go through the entire animal crossing catalog and saved a wishlist of the items I liked the best. One list for outdoor items, and one for my house items. Then I used that list to pick the items that went best together and plan themes for different areas of the town. It’s a lot of work so you have to do a little bit at a time. But it pays off!