Unconventional Sources of Design Inspiration

Generally designers and graphic artists get their inspiration from sites such as Deviant Art and the Behance network. Of course blogs are also constantly pumping out inspiration posts that provide plenty of daily inspiration.

However, if you’re taking your inspiration from solely online means then it can really limit your creativity. Today I’m going to discuss some of my favorite methods of inspiration, that will help get you away from your computer screen and boost your creativity!

Produce Non-Digital Art

As design-lovers many of us have some non-digital artistic talents. It’s very easy to ignore these when you get bogged down with RSS feeds, list-articles and sites like Flickr and Youtube. However, rather than ignore our creative skills we should be embracing them!

Exploring your offline artistic talents not only makes you feel more creative (doing creative activities often leads to you feeling more inspired), but the results that you produce are often easily transferable to digital means. Think about it, if you produce a creative collage, awesome doodle or attractive postcard design then you can try recreating these works within Photoshop. As a tutorial author I often get inspired by pieces of art I’ve done during my week.

Here are some ideas for non-digital artwork you can attempt:

• Painting/Drawing
• Try sculpting something
• Produce a creative collage, using mixed media
• You can even produce a short film or animation!

Take a Photo Tour

This can be a great way to get inspiration. Simply take a digital camera out on a walk and snap anything that catches your eye. For the best results try to go somewhere that has a mixture of urban and natural scenery. You’d be amazed at how much inspiration you can gather from a short walk. Look out for designs such as:

• Street Signs
• Shop Signs
• Textures on natural surfaces – bark, grass etc…
• Urban sculptures

Inspiration Pin-Board

If you can purchase a pin-board and put it by your work desk. Whenever you see something inspiring in a magazine or newspaper tear it and out and pin it on your board. I’ve written many of the tutorials at PSDFAN based off of ideas I’ve gotten from cool magazine ads and images.

The fact that the pin-board is right by your computer means that you constantly have a range of inspiration that you can look up at whenever you need it!

Get Inspiration from Lyrics

I’m a big music fan, and it’s amazing how much inspiration you can get from listening to your favorite lyrics.

Song lyrics are often full of metaphor and imagery, so next time you’re listening try and get a mental picture of the words. Particularly more obscure lyrics can give beautiful images. Just take a look at the opening two lines of ‘Runaway’ by The National:

“There’s no savin’ anything
I was swallowing the shine of the sun”

I instantly get some great ideas for a poster design from those lines. What do your favorite songs make you think of?

Quiet

Finally, a bit of peace and quiet can sometimes be the best inspiration of all.

Not only does quiet give you time to reflect on the inspiration you’ve witnessed that day, but it stops you being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information we come into in our lives. The internet means that it’s very rare we stop to think up new and creative ideas, and we’re constantly being bombarded with new content. Next time you have a chance take a few minutes to sit and reflect on what you’ve seen.

What Gives You Inspiration?

I’d love to know what gives you guys inspiration in your daily designing. Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

Create a new document (600X600px) and fill your canvas with this old paper texture:

Step 2

Now go to image>adjustments>hue/saturation and reduce your saturation to -60 and your lightness to +50.

Step 3

Now type out some large text in the center of your canvas. I went with Hoefler Text, 192pt, -100 kerning.

Step 4

Now download this great image of some fingerprints:

Fingerprints Photo.

Then go to image>adjustments>desaturate to grayscale your fingerprints image.

Go to image>adjustments>levels and use the settings shown below in order to darken your fingerprints.

Then finally go to select>color range and use the settings shown below. Select the ’sampled colors’ option, and then hit OK. This should select all of your fingerprint shapes.

Step 5

Ok, so now you have all of your fingerprint shapes selected. Copy/paste them onto a new layer, so that you can easily grab each fingerprint at will to use in your main composition.

Return to your main document, and start paste in your fingerprint shapes to the outside of your letters. Be sure to paste each fingerprint onto a layer BELOW your type layer.

If needed, resize, transform and rotate your fingerprints in order to fit better to the edges of your letters.

Once you’ve added enough fingerprints, merge down your type layer with all fingerprint layers, until you’re left with a single layer containing your newly distorted type:

Step 6

Now paste this image into your document, resize it to fit your canvas:

rock texture.

Then go to layer>create clipping mask. This will make your texture be masked off to fit the data on the layer beneath it (in this case our text). Then reduce your rock texture layer’s opacity to around 15%.

Step 7

Now create a new layer called ‘clouds’. Go to filter>render>clouds.

Then change this layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’.

Step 8

Now paste in your original fingerprint shapes, spacing them nicely over your canvas. Reduce the opacity of each one to between 10-40%.

Step 9

Now apply a gradient overlay adjustment layer (see settings below). Be sure to reduce the opacity of this layer to around 5% to keep the effect very subtle:

And We’re Done!

You can view the final outcome below. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and would love to hear your feedback on the techniques and outcome:

Premium Artistic Textures

You can view the textures below, and can download the full sized textures at the bottom of this page.

This premium texture set is huge, containing 8 super-high res textures!

DOWNLOAD PREMIUM TEXTURE SET.

License: Creative Commons Attribution

Week 18: Zoneziwoh Show

Zoneziwoh Show.

In the space of 5 minutes I can identify some of the key strengths and weaknesses of this design, and sketch out a mockup.

STRENGTHS:

• The header is attractive and reasonably well designed
• The website includes relevant imagery, capturing the visitor’s interest immediately
• The layout follows user expectations (menu top center, content left, ads right etc…), it’s fairly easy to browse because of this

WEAKNESSES:

• The design is very dark, which doesn’t seem to match the mood of the show.
• The header area looks at first like an advert banner
• Visitor’s must spend considerable effort browsing the site before they get to the most important content (the episodes)
• There is quite a lot of unnecessary content, that neither draws the user further into the site, or serves any purpose.

My Redesign

As always, I was limited by the 30 minute time-frame, but I tried to improve upon several of Zoneziwoh’s features, adding a few design flourishes and a clearer layout that promoted content over wasted space:

WHAT I TRIED TO DO:

• Create a simpler design, with a much lighter/fresher color-scheme. This improves the mood of the website, fitting better wit hthe themes of the show.
• I removed unnecessary areas of content, promoting the vital content far more.
• I redesigned the header to make it look more conventional, and less like an ad banner.
• I made sure to promote the episodes of the show, as these should be very easily found/viewed by the visitors.

Comparing the 2 Designs:

Here is a quick comparison between the original design and my 30 minute redesign. Sure, my design could be more polished, but I believe that a lot of the basic elements have been improved upon, creating a more pleasant browsing experience.

How and Why To Enter Redesign Saturdays

You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.

The Benefits of Getting Your Site Redesigned Include:

• Most obviously – a FREE redesign job!
• Your website gets exposure to PSDFAN’s thousands of readers
• You understand how to improve your website. This isn’t just a redesign, it’s a lesson in design.
• You will get emailed the .psd of your redesign and can do whatever you want with it!

So please, leave a comment today for a chance to have your website redesigned next week!

Inspiring Retro Design Projects

Too often these days the word ‘Retro’ is associated with the Retro Futurism design movement. Whilst I love this movement, it has become a little over-used in recent times. Also, it makes me think – just what happened to plain old Retro?

Today I bring you several awesome projects showcasing retro style design. These focus less on bright colors and light effects, and more on old-school product design, faded colors, old typography, pop art etc… We hope that you enjoy going back in time with these effects, and find some inspiration in them for your day’s work!

Alex Varanese: ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS

“What would you do if you could travel back in time? Assassinate Marilyn Monroe? Go on a date with Hitler? Obviously. But here’s what I’d do after that: grab all the modern technology I could find, take it to the late 70’s, superficially redesign it all to blend in, start a consumer electronics company to unleash it upon the world, then sit back as I rake in billions, trillions, or even millions of dollars.”

I love this project, as Alex Varanese (a favorite artist of mine) takes modern technology and fits it into old-school retro designs. It’s amazing how well these sleek modern designs fit into a retro design theme, complete with grungy faded colors and typography:

Alex Varanese: Elektrotrash: A Found Art Typeface

Another great project from Alex Varanese. This time he designs his own retro style typeface. This is constructed from various retro objects, artifacts and patterns/textures. Because of this each letter becomes a highly detailed work of art, whilst the wider constructed words are hugely stylish.

Fred: Vrac

This is one of my all time favorite retro projects. The artist has clearly done his research, as each piece shows a tremendous amount of retro authenticity. Even the simplest designs have ever letter, colors and blur applied perfectly to achieve a convincing retro result!

John Mattos: Selected Works

John Mattos uses a combination of political, social and technological motifs as a basis for his retro-styled works. The majority of his work uses vector techniques, yet his color-choices and work with adjustment layers gives them a very retro feel. Impressive stuff!

30 Minute Redesigns

I hope many of you saw last week’s 30 minute redesign. If you missed it then please check out the redesign I did of Nick Throlson

30 Minute Redesign: Nick Throlson

The idea is that I redesign a website in just 30 minutes, trying to improve upon it’s design aspects. I then publish a case-study of my improvements for learning purposes and email the webmaster the final .psd design. I will be doing one redesign each week, and to be eligible for the following week’s redesign you must leave a comment to the previous week’s redesign with your web address and why you would like a redesign.

Voting Begins

After receiving lots of great comments to last week’s redesign post, I’m happy to present the candidates for this Saturday’s redesign.

Please look over the websites below, and then use the poll at the bottom of this post to choose which site you’d like to see redesigned:

1: D.zigns

2: Twilight Blog

3: Peter Allen Memorial Lectures

4: Zoneziwoh Show

Vote Now!

Please cast your vote using the poll below:

Be sure to check back on Saturday for the winning case-study!

Mattress Textures

You can view the textures below, and can download the full sized textures at the bottom of this page.

Download Them Free

You can download the full-sized textures totally free using the link below:

Download Textures Free

License: Creative Commons Attribution

30 Exciting Examples of Sports Photography

Being out in the sun this summer I’ve had plenty of opportunity to get back into sport. Playing it makes me realize just how much energy and excitement is involved – two things which make it perfect for photography!

Sports photography often captures a tremendous amount of movement, emotion and passion. However, due to it’s often fast paced nature, capturing that perfect moment can be hugely difficult, and take a lot of skill.

Today we bring you 30 great examples of sports photography. Enjoy!

An Analysis of Inspiring Portfolio Designs

Today we take a look at some of the best and newest portfolio website designs.

We’ll look over each design, analyzing what is effective, and looking at how the designers use the conventions of portfolio design to push their work and content.

Guilherme

Portfolio Do Guilherme combines a pale, grungy background with a very large, bold illustration. This creates plenty of contrast and impact. The typography is subtle, blending nicely with the washed out background design. The navigation draws the users eye through use of super-bright menu tabs, which provide the most color at the top of this design.

Emily White Smith

Emily White Smith’s portfolio is really unique. The use of a large textured background creates a lot of detail and color. The content is presented in one of the most unique ways I’ve ever seen, being contained in a central ‘water drop’ shape. This breaks conventional square/grid layouts and really captures the users imagination.

LunaMedia

LunaMedia uses a very professional, monochromatic design. The limited, subdued colors allow the user to really focus on their content without distraction. The design is simple, yet not under-whelming due to the stylish typography variations. The link color shows the only remotely bright colors in this design, and so instantly draw the visitor’s eye.

Harrison Mann

Harrison Mann uses a classic element of dark webdesign, whereby the very dark background fore-fronts their work. The black background ensures that the photos and website-designs displayed really pop. Similarly, the sleek and simple logo design and refined menu seem elegant, and impactful against the dark backdrop.

Forever Heavy

ForeverHeavy integrates a cool interactive logo into their design, which really helps showcase their creativity. If you want to see what I mean then visit their website and hover over their logo. In addition to this they combine a subdued color-scheme with expert typography and padding. This layout feels balanced, utilizing white space to make sure that all content is highly readable and presented in an attractive manner.

Trent Walton

Trent Walton uses some awesome design features to construct this hugely appealing website design. A huge, colorful headline is combined with a large, sketched illustration. In addition to this Trent uses a lot of white space and padding to allow users to easily distinguish his menu items. Large headlines are also uses to add impact and legibility.

CG Inspired

CG Inspired uses a large, interactive featured client area to give their homepage a lot of impact. The 3d animation of the area is combined with an in-set design style, whereby the featured designs appear to be emerging out of a constructed stand. In addition to this eye-catching main area the company uses a dark headline area to draw the users as, as well as large, attractive headline text.

Michal Ptaszynski

Michal Ptaszynski uses a colorful website background, combined with a fun, bright illustration to create a lively, appealing mood for his potential clients. The combination of plenty of padding, light typography, and a coherent color-scheme enhance this appealing atmosphere.

Made by Creature

Made by Creature uses a highly creative, colorful logo to immediately draw the users eye. This is combined with a big featured work area, whereby some photographic elements break from the traditional grid system, making the layout seem more fluid and unique. Splashes of color amongst the typography helps maintain a bright, fun design.

Thomas Bishop

Thomas Bishop uses a very light, sketchy layout to promote his creativity. However, amongst the doodles and washed out backgrounds he integrates dark, bold typography to give a lot of impact. The combination means that he can evoke a sense of creativity, yet also one of order, organization and calm.

Hugs for Monsters

Hugs for Monsters has a very prominent center-piece on their homepage, a hugely creative illustration. This is key to displaying their talent and skills as designers, as utilizes the principle ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’. In addition to this center-piece the hand-sketched typography and grainy, paper-like background emphasize this firms creativity.

Chriswi.be

Chriswi uses a subtly textured background to add a sense of detail to this otherwise simple design. The cute illustration and awesome typography makes this a really fun design to browse, and the bright color-scheme helps accentuate this.

Nemesis Design

Nemesis Design is a great example of the grungy web design trend. The combination of textured backgrounds, brush effects, light effects and grungy typography means that this is one messy design! However, due to the careful placement and balance of all these elements the design is also coherent, legible and attractive.

Alex Swanson

Alex Swanson has opted for a retro feeling design. This is achieved by the use of the retro illustration in the top right, but also by the unusually slanted layout dividers, as well as the retro, slanted text headings. He combines these retro elements with clean, professional, bright modern elements, making his website truly unique!

Lindsey Grande

Lindsey Grande has a hugely clean web design. The sleek edges and bright color-scheme makes this design very appealing. There is also a large, colorful heading, and artistic central logo. The color-scheme is very coherent throughout the site, combining attractive shades of blue and green that are very complimentary.

Sebastian Mrazek

Sebastian Mrazek uses a grungy header illustration, and textured background to infer creativity and a grungy design style. The artist’s work is given a lot of prominence, and the surrounding content is minimal, in order to keep attention on the featured works.

Lee Driscoll

Lee Driscoll’s homepage feels very interactive, with a lot of live social media feeds, and an awesome moving cloud background animation. The colorful, playful design uses illustrative details and fun typography in order to keep the website very personal-feeling, rather than hard or corporate.

Maksimer

Maksimers design is very clean, yet uses a bar graph illustration to really draw the users eye. The bright colors and subtle gradients create an attractive center-piece. The light background, and dark, legible typography make the website look very professional and engaging.

Talita Pagini

Talita Pagini uses a very bright color-scheme to immediately grab the visitor’s attention. The header uses an attractive bokeh style design, combined with illustrated clothing tags to comprise the menu. The addition of textured content areas and subtle typographic drop-shadows makes this a very effective design.

Chris Kaufman

Chris Kaufman has a great looking website. The paint-effect background combined with various texture effects means that the backdrop to his content is really rich. The creative menu typography helps set his style apart, and the large featured work area is engaging and prominent.

The Awe-Inspiring Mixed Media Works of Florian Nicolle

I’ve loved mixed-media art for years, it often feels raw, rough and creative. The combination of sketched lines, photo-realistic detail, material-based collages and grungy splatters is simply beautiful, and Florian Nicolle’s work captures everything I love about the medium.

Florian’s work is rough, yet very refined, and delicately put together. If you haven’t encountered his work before, then please take a look at the pieces below and take some inspiration: