Getting Inspired

As a designer, it's important to stay abreast of the latest work in the field. For me, that used to mean going to website galleries and reading articles on the latest CSS techniques. When CSS and XHTML were new and different, it was easy to get caught up in what people were doing with the technology. Now that it's been a while since we all stopped using tables for layout, it takes a lot more to impress and inspire me with a website design. So, I've branched out. Now when I'm looking for inspiration, I have a few sources that never let me down.

Websites

FFFFOUND Probably the most up-to-date design image resource on the web, FFFFOUND is an ever-changing, user-submitted gallery of the latest work available online. With thousands of images already added to the collection, I'm never at a loss for inspiration when viewing their RSS feed.

Apartment Therapy My wife and I just bought a new house and it's been great to see what other people are doing with their spaces. Whether it's the color of the furniture, the artwork on the wall, or the great architecture, I'm often inspired by photos from this site.

Drawn! This blog is the place to go to keep up with everything illustrated. My roots are in illustration and I can't help but admire the talent showcased here. Sometimes illustrators make for really incredible typographers and there's a lot of that here too.

Magazines

WIRED I've been subscribed to Wired for almost a year now and it has me thoroughly impressed. The articles are usually interesting but the design is stellar. It's a great mixture of white space, slab-serifs, info-graphics, and awesome colors. If you don't read it, you should at least admire it for its design.

ReadyMade This magazine is solid. I like this magazine so much I even bought the book! On top of having great ideas for cheap, cool home-made stuff, the magazine is chock full of great font treatments and elegant illustrations.

Bon Appetit Okay, I admit it. I read my wife's cooking magazines. It's just for the layout! I promise! I particularly like the photography and color combinations used in this one.

Well, that about does it for now. I'm sure next month I'll have a whole new list of things I'm digging. If you're feeling stuck and need some inspiration, step away from the web design galleries and check out some of sites and magazines I've listed here.