Inspiration - I need it, I crave it, I want it.

Racking my brain and CSS design award winners can land me right back to the age old problem. Staring at a white paper- with no design plan. With this problem on my mind I have compiled a few websites, artists and design work that rattles my brain and gets my creative mojo back.

Break Down http://www.ianwharton.com/
The best part of this design is the design breakdowns. As an art director so much of your work relys on communication. I think this is an excellent example of communicating print, web, and design campaigns to the viewer.

Virgo it out
No sense in viewing the same websites over and over again or saying to yourself. What was that site that the client mentioned? Screen Shoot and organize your favorite inspirations for your sites. You can use them over and over again and see them at the click of an arrow rather then with load times and flash distractions. Its an amazing way to see the bones of a website and combine your inspirations into one place.


Watch
Movie Trailers and Opening Sequences - there is more to them then you might think. I am so inspired by the opening sequence of movies like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and Stranger then fiction. Designers like Danny Yount have a way of telling a narrative but keeping intrigue with in an opening sequence. In the end is'nt that the point of design - to tell a story?

Stranger than Fiction: Opening Sequence
by Razorbuzz

Put Wallpaper Up
I am always amazed when i see working design professionals with a standard apple or windows desktop, i know you want to be at the beach right now, but lets be honest that palm tree is'nt giving anyone a "warm and fuzzy feeling". ::yawn:: When i have a new client or i am in a design rut the first thing i do is grab a new wallpaper or make my own. I find it important to put something on my desktop that makes me think and give me a "virtual ambiance" the more whimsical the better. I love these wallpapers from vladstudio : http://www.vladstudio.com/home/ and from desktopography : http://www.desktopography.net/

Get the Info
By Fueling my Starbucks addiction i have noticed an interesting info design series called "Good", each week there is an amazing info graphics piece breaking down everything from fuel to the economy in an compact easy to read chart. Information graphics is the hardest thing in my arsenal of things that a designer has to do (hats off to you!). So when doing info graphics i need more then a kick in the pants to get a great design completed. I am inspired by Edward Tufte yes, but more so but his protege' Megan Jaegerman her work is clever, conveyed and inspirational!

Free CMS!

Designers near and far know that 2008 and beyond brings a new era for client interactions. Clients demand CMS, and while it may take a few minutes to set up blogging sites like Wordpress and Blogger are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to building incredible blogs, websites, and flexible interactive pages.

I have been testing several free CMS systems and here are 2 of the best, easiest and most importantly free results.

Idiot proof CMS: Cushy CMS
You don't have to download anything, the client does'nt have to touch things they are not suppost to and you can just worry about editing div tags to say "cushycms". This site is intellegent CMS that is both easy for the clients to use as well as the designers.
www.cushycms.com/

Under a rock?: WordPress
Okay so i admit, i have been under a rock with the wordpress phenomenon. A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. This is blogging software so flexible and easy to use - several top companies and design blogs are using this SQL blogging system to produce up to the minunte updated beauitufl sites. There is some small download time and confusion with the SQL databases. But once your on! your up and running. They also have an incredible user based documentation from other users for troubleshooting. Its well moterated and well documented! Finally - if your feeling a little lazy there is a plethora of incredible wordpress themes out there to get you started. Use em' and tweak em'.
http://wordpress.org/