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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Stumbling, it’s awesome.

Stumbling, it’s awesome. In a society of media junkies, new and informative ways to gorge ourselves on delectable content are always welcome. And when that new fount of fun co-insides with work it’s even more diverting. Stumbleupon.com is my latest foray into media addiction, having accumulated almost four hundred “favorites” in as little as a month. Ranging from web design tools, to photoblogs, to funny videos, to top ten lists, to photoshop tutorials, to recipe sites, I can definitively say I’m hooked.

It is encouraging to see that such a community exists, as through stumbling I have found some resources that I use on a regular basis. Such as; www.bittbox.com ,   a great place to start on a search for free textures, and www.psdeluxe.com, with some awesome blog posts and lists on creative tools for todays’ savvy designers.

Oh, and a few favorites:

awesome fridge magnet:
www.onemoregadget.com/photoshop-magnet-kit-for-a-design-nuts-fridge/

awesome packaging:
www.krftd.com/special_report/transparent-mystery

awesome product design:
www.recyclart.org/2009/07/lighting-made-of-galvanized-iron

awesome public art:
www.yawoot.com/post/3206

awesome illustration tutorials:
www.tutorial9.net/resources/15-of-the-best-character-illustration-tutorials-online

awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.psdtop.com/blog/basic/understanding-blending-modes/

another awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/06/custom_halftone.html

awesome posters:
www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/30-typography-posters-that-youve-probably-never-seen-before/

awesome museum:
www.moma.org

awesome tech:
www.dvice.com/archives/2009/08/color-picker-pe.php

-john

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Working on grokllc.com V2 - Menu(s)

There’s a certain dilemma that I face whenever something is finally finished, created, uploaded, etc. I’m never fully happy with it. I find myself going back to it and saying, “Well, what I should have done was this…” or “Maybe we could have added this element in lue of X.” Point being is you are always your biggest critic.  During the last parts of work on the 1st grok site I started to think about what the next one would be, “what’s wrong with the 1st one?” I think John asked, my reply, “Nothing, everything, there’s a mountain of things I would like to explore that we just can’t, less me start from scratch.” At that time we were pretty much a week behind getting the 1st site finished so I had to shelf my ideas till a latter date and time.

Welcome to a latter date and time.

This is the roots from which the tree has sprung. While this looks like the scribbles and rants of someone that should be committed to an institution, it makes perfectly good sense to John and myself. What this says about us…well I’m not entirely sure, we’ll save that post for a another time.

The original idea, if its in there, was to create a site that had both ease of use as well as having some artistic interactivity. By creating vector based art that not only changes through the user’s choices but also anchors all the information that the site has to display we thought we could create something that would be not only pleasant to look at but would also reflect something about us from a stylistic standpoint. From that launching point, one of anchoring vectors, John had the idea to strip the design down even more so that when a user navigated around they would be creating their own unique background, this was latter platformed to the idea that we could present nothing but white space and user navigation would be akin to ‘cutting’ through the background to reach other layers, much like when you tear a parts of a page out of a magazine you still see the page you’re on but also the one below it.

At this point in time the only work that’s been put into bring that idea to fruition is some simple menu creation, here’s a few examples cropped down, think of them as part of a much larger white page.

V2 Mk1

V2 Mk2

V2 Mk2b

Don’t ask how these things were reached from the madness that was scrawled on that piece of paper, its a mystery to everyone. The menus right now are very rough around the edges, however I think the color schemes are growing on me. Anyway, as things begin to evolve and take more of a concrete shape I’ll be back with an update and perhaps even more illegible sharpie drawings.

-Adam

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CoreDogs is The Newest Sexy Link

CoreDogs, developed by Professor Kieran Mathieson of Oakland University, is a great way to learn about the back end of web design and ebusiness.  The site is intended to teach you how to be a “Weber”; it helps you become someone who has the skillsets to handle some of the tech, and gives advice on how to become a better e-business person. CoreDogs is as much a study in a way of thinking, as it is a teching tool for web designers. In today’s fast paced ebiz world you should at least have a bit of an understanding of the backend, even if all you do is create nice layout PSDs for coders to deal with (trust me the coders will appreciate it). CoreDogs is simple and interesting, it takes a goal oriented approach to teaching and it is easy to use. Kieran is allways working to improve it and I’m sure wouldn’t mind a few more testers.

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Help Kill IE6

IE6 is the most useless browser that is still around today.  According to w3schools.com 13.6% of us are still using this shadey excuse for a browser. You cannot write a decent stylesheet for your site, without having to write another one just for IE6. This really gets in the way of web design. We must destroy this menace. Please go to ie6update.com and get a script you can throw inside your body tags to ask users to upgrade to ie6. The script is none invasive and will not force them to upgrade.

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