Inspiration

[OniLinkCR]

I haven’t seen this question anywhere here so I might as well ask in search for new ideas, and no, I am not going to ask about sites for inspiration.

I was kind of wondering if you guys “hit a wall” when it comes to inspiration and what do you usually do. Do you keep getting more feedback in terms of inspiration, or does your mind linger around, waiting for the apple to drop? I guess I ask because I don’t know when enough is enough in terms of inspiration nor how long am I supposed to linger around for the apple to hit my gigantic mass I call head.

Another thing that bothers me a lot. I have a PLETHORA of bookmarks composed of articles and tutorials. I need a better way to organize it as Safari isn’t cutting it. Should I go with Firefox where you can tag them and then search? It’s just that sometimes I see this nice script and I will go AHA, and then when I want to apply it I literally get a 404 (not found) when searching my folders :p.

[TheDoc]

I hit the wall a lot. Whenever that happens, I try to step away from the project and refresh. Usually when I come back after a couple of days I am ready to go – or I’ll reach an epiphany when I least expect it (waiting for public transit, in the shower, etc etc).

I like doodling a lot for projects. I also ask colleagues to suggest their own approach, etc.

[chrisburton]

I thought I was the only one who thought about design in the shower. Hmmph.

[OniLinkCR]

No. Am I the only one that stares at something when thinking of something design related and your SO is talking to you and asks you what is wrong with you?

[Vopensource]

I agree with virtual…People always thrive for the best. If you have an idea that isnt perfect,,you,ll always search for some better one.

[furrball1383]

ok basically if its for a company or project thats already defined as in the company has a name product and such and I’m drawing a blank, I go back to them and ask them what kind of theme they’d like and try to get some inspiration off the descriptors they use. If its just for me making websites in different ways then I tend to pick different things like a bar, a culinary site, an art gallery and design instead around the layout. Just by using different layouts than you’re comfortable with it tends to make your brain go down roads you didn’t know you had. I mean say you’re just doing a page with a left side bar and a right main content and top menu every time, your brain is going to keep reaching for what it already knows, but if you switch it and vary your layouts, your brain has to come up with new ideas. Another thing to do is if you have a ton of tutorials, design a whole site based off a tutorial, for example if you have a tutorial for a certain type of navigation, build it and then work out the best website style to complement the nav. If all else fails, browse other peoples awesome websites :D

[joelmb]

I recalled this discussion when I saw this video today. might help!
http://vimeo.com/24302498

[akurtula]

at the beginnings I stugled with this part, so I start to keep a sketchbook where I add all my ideas (nothing specificly related to anything) and in 8/10 times I find that when I hit the wall I start browsing around these browings without looking at anything specific – that works for me, I know that everything and I get out of that book is original
but there are other times when you just have to do something else.

about the bookmarks, i add them to http://www.delicious.com/ (I use digg with the idea of sharing with others and delicious just for myself) – that gives you the tags and so forth – and then there is the tool bar so you use it same as the intergrated bookmarks

I know what you mean about the 404 errors so to solve that I have set up a wordpress in my localhost where I just copy and paste anything I think will be useful – and with extentions like scribefire that takes just a selection and right click. Of course this is just in the localhost- so there is no danger of copyright. I find this helpful with tutorials as in most cases I never need to go through step1 to the end; so only get what I need

[Author]

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