When you are looking for inspiration it can sometimes be hard to know where to start. Sometimes you have been given a direction and requirements from the client and other times you get a clean slate. I love starting a design from new the clean blank canvas but every so often I go completely blank and struggle to get anything down and out of out mind to give me a tangible place to start. So where do I find my inspiration for design, I use all kinds of ways to generate ideas:-

CSS Galleries

Are a great place to start and really generate some ideas, you can sort by colour, design styles including dark and different layouts. Usually I see something that catches my eye. I did a quick search today and found this design.

I really like this design its clean, fresh and although has the standard navigation has elements that allow the user to interact with the site in a fun way with the navigation around the tree and the featured projects.

Graffiti

I love sites that show graffiti art always suprise me as it proves that you can be creative in even the most unusual places.  Graffiti art is not always appreciated by everyone but I think that you should take a look and judge for yourself.

Design Blogs

Design blogs are a great way to get ideas and create something that you like, taking ideas and design tips are not only a great way to improve your designs but you also come across ideas that you can run with and create something more inline with your design and how you want it to work.  I recently came across a great light effect that I have used on one of my designs which looks great.

There is plenty of places to take inspiration from, where do you get yours?

Sorry we have not been around much lately so much, we relocated offices which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare – people should realise that the internet is a priority. We are all settled now in our new offices and have the internet – which does help. It is a lot nicer than the ones we had before and now that we have some of the major projects out of the way we thought we would return to DDA.

I thought since we came back this week we would take a look at Typekit which has just come out of beta which is great news as it provides designers with a library of fonts which you can easily integrate into your designs and best of all you can currently sign up for free.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Typekit it is the “easiest way to use real fonts on the web”. The issue in the past has been that it has not always been legal to use some fonts as they are protected by copyright even some that are available for free. When you are limited with your typeface in a design it can be really frustrating and sometimes make you feel that you have compromised your design which is why Typekit works so well.

Typekit offers the solution, with its web only font linking license, hosting both free and commercial fonts whilst eliminating the problem of how different browsers render the font. Typekit also state that in most cases, the css and fonts will be served up faster than your own web pages.  Which is a huge step forward from what we have had to rely on previously.

We think Typekit is easy and simple to use which makes this a great tool for any designer and with the range of typefaces now available we should see some great designs/fonts appearing on the web.  Watch this space!

Earth Hour was created by WWF and Leo Burnett advertising agency in 2007, and this year they have teamed up with Shepard Fairey (Famous for his “Obey Giant” a 1989 street-art project and the more recent “Obama Hope” campaign) to re brand for Earth Hour 2009 and you can immediately see Fairey’s influence in the design.

The re design is not the only place that Earth Hour has invested their marketing budget this year, they’ve invested in a “Fairey-esque” devoted website www.voteearth2009.org to carry the brand (opposed to main site) Not only that they have fully embraced the online world with downloadable promotional packs, banners, posters, stickers, widgets and buttons, but they have also embraced the social networking community by setting up global social media profiles including twitter, myspace and facebook.

Maybe the big push this year can partly be chalked up to Google’s contribution to “Lights Out San Francisco” last October when they symbolically turned their homepage black.

Athough using a black screen on a flat panel monitor uses MORE energy than the usual white, getting a company such as Google to commit to a cause is more of a symbolic gesture on their part, it’s about raising awareness and gaining support for a cause that they believe in rather than actually reducing the energy output of the world for an hour.

But with the advent of the Web 2.0 philosophy of  ”if you build it they will come” mentality, thousands of social networks srpung up virtually over night. Now you can even create your own social network as easily as you can create a single myspace profile with the introduction of sites such as Ning - so what’s to stop every Tom, Dick and Harry setting up their own social network?

But just as with any web site – everything hinges on design, functionality and usability. Users are getting more and more fickle and disloyal – if a network isn’t giving them what they want, they can just go find another one that does.

Here are three main points to consider when designing a social network;

1) Engage the user quickly.

First impressions are paramount when users have thousands of websites to choose from. Before distracting the user with too many peripheral features, you need to make the core features of your network clear. Make sure there is a very short learning curve for users to be able to add content or change settings so that they can see the results quickly. To continually engage users, some dynamic applications are needed, providing activity notices from other members is a good way to show new users what else they can do on your network without being intrusive.

2) Enable self expression.

The user’s profile page needs to be customisable and offer a variety of options for expression. The profile will reflect the person’s identity, expressing their likes, dislikes, tastes etc. The more self expression available on the profile, the more interactions are possible. The growth of a network is exponentially related to the amount of interaction between the users.

3) Encourage Community Building.

By following the first two points (engaging quickly and enabling self expression) These connections can quickly grow as in a real public setting, users tend to gather together in groups of similar interests or tastes, the same is true in the online world.  As these communities grow, users become vested in the network, and are less likely to stray elsewhere.

These points are the basis of any good social network, designing and developing an interface that enables users to do all of this easily and smoothly is the reason so many start up social networks fail. Not only that but nowerdays you have to offer somthing much MORE than just the ability to interact with people – that’s old news – offering a unique selling point to get users interested and dominate your niche is the most important (and difficult) part of developing your own social network.

As Myspace is arguably “The Daddy” of the Social Networking craze I’ve collected a few examples of some new music social networking sites to compare it too.

Each of these Music Social Networks offer unique services to their users that the others don’t/can’t. Trig, for example, is a combination of Myspace and Digg allowing users to “Trig” their favourite track/artist, Midomi allows you to sing or hum a track through your microphone to search for it instead of a plain old text search, much like Shazam on the mobile phone. Each one offers their users something different than the last. Although after discovering a recent post regarding OoiZiT.com in the Guardian whilst researching, I think they will be the ones to watch in 2009.

Although a fairly simple concept graffiti art really works to enhance and sometime even transform images into so much more – almost bringing them to life.   This design by Eric Castro is a really good example of how simple but effective light graffiti is.

To create light graffiti you need a good camera with faster shutter speed, with the exposure setting around 10-30 seconds.  Knowing your lighting will help with the end effect of light.  I gave it a go once I do think it takes a little practice to understand how the light will work in the photograph but it is great fun.

I have found some other great light graffiti:

I think light graffiti can be used to create good design online.  I have seen WordPress themes based around this design concept recently that really work to enhance the design and bring it to life.

For more information on light graffiti visit Awesome Light Graffiti or search the web.

We have our Christmas party tomorrow night and we are all really looking forward to it, we looked back over party photos from last years, I cannot believe it has been a whole year since then.  Some of the photos are really funny and I nearly posted some on but didn’t think it was appropriate!!

I read a nice article on the BBC, which is a nice cheery Christmas article for the Friday before Christmas.

“A Sheffield man who lent a penniless Australian tourist £5 to pay for a ferry trip in 1969 has been repaid his debt nearly 40 years later.”

It is nice to see that Christmas spirit is still going strong and even after 40 years people still remember the kindness that was extended to them.

We have a bet on at work and I am betting on snow for Christmas so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas.