Awesome Sites for Design Inspiration
So 2011 has been a very lucky year for me so far. Let me tell you, in the past week alone, I've won a free delicious beverage from Starbucks, $100 towards the vacation package of my choice from Delta, and two free coaching sessions from career coach Steph Auteri. (More on those once the coaching sessions are done - but let's just say that she's been a huge help so far, given me some excellent advice and other resources, and has made me look at my own life & my goals in a new perspective!)
Adding to all of that, I received an email today from one of my absolute favorite design studios (and a big source of inspiration), Seventh Street Studio. Apparently, I've won myself a copy of their new sketchbook! Can you say THRILLED?!
If you haven't heard of Seventh Street, I suggest you check 'em out. They work with some impressive big name clients and provide a lot of great services, offer free wallpaper downloads, and their impressive portfolio is worth gazing at if you find yourself stuck in some designers' block!
Another great site to look at if you are in need of inspiration is:
The Design Inspiration
This site was actually recommended by Seventh Street, and man, it has it all! There are daily inspirational articles on a variety of topics, as well as ultra-creative and cutting-edge logos, fonts, websites, illustrations, digital art, links and more!
One of the sites I found on Design Inspiration was the award-winning portfolio site of designer Kunal Chhajer. It's lighthearted, sleek and very creative. Check it out!
And finally... this is just amazing... Spend some time looking around Never Mind the Bullets. As you can tell from the name, it's a whimsical site - but look a little deeper at what they are doing here. It's a comic. It's a game. It's interactive. It's fun. It's... Flash? Think again!! I'm unbelievably excited about the stuff this site is doing with jQuery. The effects are very complex, mimicking much of what is possible with Flash and showing that there is no doubt about the animation and interaction powers of jQuery - especially Parallax (which we have used here on Pixels and Media in the recent past, and we LOVE it.
As you read, you literally pull the storyline onto the screen, make things move, control characters (letting them walk into a bar for example). You can also take it a step further and create your own nemesis to fight in a make-believe cartoon world (translation: awesome). Hey, why are you still reading this? Go! Do it now!
Kudos to all of the above designers, developers, webmasters and creative teams on a job well done on each of these sites. Thanks to all of you for keeping me inspired!
What sites do YOU like to visit when your creative juices need refueling? Share your favorite graphic and web design inspiration sites here. I'd love to add more to my list!
An SEO Birthday Card
So my birthday is a week from Saturday, and by sheer coincidence I stumbled across the following birthday card while I was working on a design for a client this afternoon. It's too ironic not to share! Those of you who know anything about search engine optimization (SEO) will appreciate this:
Thanks to deeboo.com for this image!