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?

I have always been a huge fan of encouraging design and just generally being creative from a young age, afterall this is where the future of design lies.

With the finalists of Doodle 4 Google in Ireland picked for each age group from juniors to 6th year students now is the time to vote.   Contestants enter from different schools within Ireland and then the competition (I think moves to English entries)

You can vote for your favorite on Doodle 4 Google online with the voting ending on Monday 16th February 2009.

Here are some that caught my eye:-

Age 5th/6th year

Evan O’Sullivan Glynn, aged 16


Nathan Cafolla aged 16

1st, 2nd and 3rd year

Sarah Peters aged 14

Nora Casey aged 12

Juniors and Infants

Louise Gilmore aged 8

Visit the Doodle 4 Google site to place votes for each age group.

Single Page Layouts

We visited single page portfolio designs in a previous DDA post on showcase and showreel sites but I felt it was important enough to include as a prediction for 2009 too, as I believe we will be seeing a lot more of these types of designs – not just restricted to portfolio sites.

Pikaboo.be


Paolo Boccardi – Photographer

Modal Boxes / Lightboxes

This method of displaying media or capturing data is fast becoming the norm for web sites. Modal Boxes enable the user to input information, make selections or view images and videos without having to navigate away from the page they are viewing.

The Typographic Desk Reference

WordPress

Fabric and Textures

Adding texture to a web site is a simple way to add interest and depth to your design. Background images are the most common area of use but adding it to headers, footers, content areas, sidebars and even fonts can give a design the extra edge.

There’s a good tutorial here if you want to know more.

Bern

Web Designer Wall

NarfStuff

Retro & Vintage

Vintage design elements are becoming the ‘new thing’ in web design. Left out of digital design in preference of hi-tec glossy effects, retro is making a comeback. Used effectively it evokes a nostalgia that most find hard to resist.

Target Scope
Level2D

Prahba

Dynamic Tabs

Dynamic Tabs are going to become a popular choice for multi tiered web sites in 2009. A tabbed area whos content can be changed dynamically will provide an area for promotion without the user having to load the whole page to find out it’s not what they’re looking for. Expression Engine demonstrates this perfectly with their site.

Expression Engine

Komodo Media

If you would like to know more about creating dynamic tabs visit NetTuts.com

Ok so first things first – why should I use this newfangled Google Chrome? Google’s a search engine, what on earth makes them think they can develop a browser?!? Well they can, and they have, and not done a bad job of it to be honest. So what are the main plus points of Chrome that I miss when using the other browsers?

• Installation is both quick and easy and with the quick start videos you’ll be ready to go within minutes.
• Transfer both your IE and Firefox bookmarks, passwords and history with one click. Better than erasing/overwriting them like Firefox did last time I ran an update.
• Much more than an address bar – Google calls this the ‘Omnibar’ it doubles as a search box and gives intellegent autocomplete search suggestions.
• Multiprocess Architecture – Nothing’s more annoying than when you have loads of tabs open then one tab crashes and takes down the whole browser – This is no longer an issue when using Chrome as all of the tabs have their own ‘sandbox’ meaning that they cannot share information between tabs – so if one goes down you can close that within Chrome and leave your other tabs running. This is also benificial when it come to security – if one tab gets attacked by malware for instance, it will only affect that tab.
• Speed – Initially I didn’t find much to shout about with regards to the speed of Chrome – definitely not as noticable as the difference between FF and IE – until I tried running a heavey java script site on one tab and my hotmail on the other. Ordinarilly the java would slow down both tabs but not in Chrome thanks to the Sandbox.