The new look for the GROK site.

We are redoing the GROK site, and we are almost finished. The new features of the GROK site will include: a totally redone site written in php and javascript rather than flash, a shop where you can download web commodities for free and buy others, a totally new portfolio system, and a uniform style across the whole site. To give you a feel for how the site is going to look in general we have started revamping the hatchery. I did a lot of programming today, and the few art assets that haven’t been revamped would be if it were not for internet explorer’s inability to get with the CSS program. Had to write a bunch of new fixed for IE. Anyway, hope you enjoy the preview, the completely new GROK site should be launching in the next week.

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Allods Online

John and I have been beta testing this new MMORPG Allods Online. Adam has sworn off all MMOs since getting over his addiction to the digital crack that is World of Warcraft (WOW), but we have been enjoying ourselves while he plays Xplorers. Anyway, it is a real cool clone of WOW available to you if you have a gpotato account. When I say clone, I mean clone;  John says it reminds him a lot of WOW vanilla. I think it’s a little more steam punk than WOW, but generally it is the same thing. Only it’s free, and just because you clone something does not mean what you created is terrible (great artists steel).  When it comes it MMOs you really can not go wrong ripping off WOW. They have done a wipe, and the open beta is starting today. However, we were supposed to be able to login as of 2pm EST, but so far I have had no luck. Try it out for your self, let me know what you think.

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Inspiration

Over the past two weeks I have been handed multiple projects both at school and with Grok. They encompass brochure design, motion design for a logo, and multiple website designs. When faced with such a multitude of creative challenges it is necessary for me to find the magical thing known as inspiration. Where does one find inspiration? A few places.

While I do thumb through some relevant books and magazines at times like these the majority of my time is spent on the world wide web. The infinite expanse of information. On my computer I have bookmarked a few websites that I consistently refer to for inspiration. Today, I am going to share them with you. For logo design inspiration I refer to www.identityarchives.com, www.brandsoftheworld.com, and my personal favorite www.logopond.com. Specifically for print I sometimes refer to www.stationarystyle.net. And for web I browse www.cssremix.com, www.webdesign-inspiration.com, and the cream of the crop www.webcreme.com. But what about Flash sites? Good question, for inspiration on Flash sites I go to www.thefwa.com or www.bestwebgallery.com. For an organized list of specific types of websites you can visit http://www.vandelaydesign.com/blog/design-inspiration/ which will provide many different categories — however, from my experience, they don’t seem to update it much, if at all. And then, for general inspiration, which is potentialy the most important of all, I visit www.illustrationmundo.com, www.faceoutbooks.com, and the all-powerful www.typographyserved.com. You also might want to check out http://www.howdesign.com/top10sitesfordesigners/ which is updated every month with new websites that are generally portfolio sites. Where did I find all of these websites? Mostly through browsing the web, which is always fun. But one day I came across a splendid website that I plucked a good amount of these sites from and that has many, many more: http://www.aialex.com/2007/07/09/top-50-inspirational-websites-for-designers/ Here is listed 50 of the “top” websites for inspiration. So check it out.

Now, if you got bored reading the above paragraph or it looked too big for you and you inevitably skipped down here than congrats. Right now I am going to reveal my absolute favorite website for inspiration that I visit on a daily basis and refer back to continuously:

www.behance.net

This website is basically deviantart for professionals. With daily updated featured work and categorizing abilities such as “Most Recent”, “Most Viewed”, “Most Discussed”, and “Most Appreciated” you will definitely appreciate this website. The Behance Network encompasses work from the fields of Academia, Acrobatics, Advertising, Animation, Architecture, Art Direction, Automotive, Blogging, Branding, Caricature, Carpentry……………….Textile Design, Theatre, Toy Design, Typography, Urbanism, Video Arts, Video Blogging, Video Game Design, Video Jockey, Virtual World Design, Visual Arts, Visual Effects, Web Design, Web Development, Wood Working, and Writing. And I don’t know if you noticed, but I skipped a lot of our alphabet so you wouldn’t have to read that much. But go and check out the rest of the categories and never go anywhere else again.

Well, with all of that said. I’m not encouraging the theft of other designers work or unoriginal designing. These are just places to check out visually pleasing and user-friendly pieces so you can see what works and make something creative on your own.

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