What's inspiring your design right now?

Hey gang,

Most of us involved in design find inspiration in the most surprising of places... a snippet of something overheard in conversation; a page layout concept from a financial magazine; a train pulling out of deserted station... I think you get my drift. Inspiration's everywhere!

» What's inspiring your design right now?
» What are the sites you've come across
that you wished you'd designed?
» What color palettes and textures are you
using.. or avoiding?
» How about layouts? Do you care about
accessiblity?

Interested in your comments.

Robsta

Hey! this is a great topic... c'mon!

I haven't been doing a lot of design lately, but sites that are "doing it" for me at the moment:

* http://www.dunun.com/ - the entrance, the colours, the sounds, the music - all amazing! Love the curves
* http://www.dunun.com/bmw/ - jaw dropping opening - love the curves
* http://www.styleboost.com/ - endless amounts of inspiration
* http://www.adrenalin.com.au/ - just slick, very, very slick.

I get inspiration from within... I've recently bought another digital camera and have been taking some amazing shots with it (wallpapers coming soon to nightwatchmen.com). I also get inspiration from the music I'm listening too... dunno why or how, but it works!

UPDATE: OMFG! Just went and checked out dunun.com again - tonight... and it's nighttime on the site! Such a simple thing to do technically, but looks awesome!

Robsta,

Unfortunately, I've run into some designer's block these past few days.

Stumpy's been helping me overcome it, and some of the sites he's recommended are definitely helping...

As for when I'm normally jiving with design, music definitely helps... the more ambient the better at times. My collection is somewhat similar to Stumpy's, so we're constantly recommending artists/styles to eachother...

One artist that I find calms me down into a state of concentration is Sade... I love her stuff.

Photography also does it for me... Black and white, Sepia, or Color. Either one helps, although I find the B&W to be more "artistic". Not sure why, but I just do.

Like I said, I'm in a bit of a "rutt", so to speak... Not sure what to do about it. I guess I need to take a break for a day or so, and re-gather my thoughts/ideas... Any tips from a fellow boardsmen would be great!

Hey Frankie,

I'll post some of my current reference when I get a chance tomorrow. I've been able to stay abreast of the «Word Game» but need a lil' bit mo' time to pull together some ref.

I like how you used sepia photos in one of the websites you designed for a wedding company - I checked it via your old website. How's the nu site coming along?

Sade reminds me of when I lived London - trés ambient.

Bientôt!
Robsta

Hey Robsta,

Right now I'm trying to find inspiration through photography as well. I picked up a digital camera during the holidays and I'm trying to attain some creative knowledge and inspiration through photos. It's the images and composition that help make a site attractive, so I'm trying to learn some of that.

Right now I'm finding that maybe simple is better. I don't profess to be a designer so keeping things simple makes it easier for me. Two or Three colour palette sites are nice. I don't ever use black backgrounds (remember the old days). Choosing colour is one of the toughest decisions I find in design, well, when you're looking for something other than blue.

Frankie...start listening to Jazz music. My current choice during design moment - 91.1 FM in Toronto.

Simple is usally better. Just take a look through dunun.com's portfolio. All he does is use a gob-smackingly gorgeous photo, and lays a little nav over the top. I really love the "feature photo" style. My only fault with dunun.com's work is that he isn't diverse enough... i.e. almost all his sites use the feaure photo look.

re: photography - i get my inspiration not from the actual photo I take, but the editing I do afterwards in photoshop... hue/saturation, contract, other subtle effects that can really make an o.k. photo look amazing. Of course, good composition helps. I gained a large amount of my photography knowledge from a book called The K.I.S.S. Guide to Photography

re: music - you can usually see what I'm listening too via my personal site - nightwatchmen.com

Hi y'all,

Here are a few links to sites that I like the look of right now. Sometimes it's just an element, the composition, an illustration technique, an effect, color palette, etc... there might be aspects that aren't too g.i. (as Stumpy pointed out elsewhere - such as accessibility and lack of indexible text).

Regarding CountFly mentioning that «simple is better», I couldn't agree more. A simple design structure with bold elements makes me go weak @ the knee.

http://www.bananarepublic.com/default.htm - clean layout with strong central image and a controlled palette.

http://www.merimeri.com/ - nice animation technique. Good color palette.

http://www.ambientdevices.com - love the ambient animation.

http://www.savoir-faire.com - good layout and lush use of color.

http://www.beealive.com/ - I like the drop downs - good use of gradated color palette. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how this was done - it's something I'd like to be able to do when I have more time to try to understand the script and how to apply it. (Would this work in combo with CSS?)

http://www.sacksco.com/ - simple, elegant design.

Interested in your comments.

I think the use of white space is what's common among those sites you've listed robsta

Here are some of the sites I like:

http://www.bose.com - layout, colour palette

http://www.pepperconstruction.com - I like the simplicity of the site

http://www.generalalliance.com.au/flash.jsp - only one page.

http://www.mulvanny.com/home.asp - very stylish

I like the following site for inspiration, it's got some great links and is nicely designed itself:

http://www.mediainspiration.com