In order to clear my mind of all the crazy code web design involves, I make design resources.

Henry Jones of Web Design Ledger was kind enough to include my patterns in his new article 100 New and Beautiful Seamless Patterns.

I enjoy making design resources almost as much as using them. You are more than welcome to download and use them however you wish. (link) Thanks again Henry! Camxso

Japanese Love Song

That’s My Dad

Summer Vol. 1

Summer Vol. 2

Summer Vol. 3

Summer Vol. 4

Summer Vol. 5

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Summer Vol. 7

Summer Vol. 8

Like most designers on the web, I’m pressed for ideas on a daily basis. Designers really tax their brains to come up with fresh, innovative and really WOW designs. I may have found the key to their success and my own.

If you like to read, as I do, a great book for anyone interested in “Thinking without thinking” will surely benefit from reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Understanding how your mind works along with God given talent can extend your ideas and lesson your struggling time.

I’ve found myself actually coming up with the best designs in the early morning, when I’m too tired to really think about what I’m doing. Sounds crazy I know, but our logic mind can work out the perfections in the daylight. What we need is an avenue or key per say to open up our creative sides and the willingness to let the juices flow.

Do you ever wonder why web site designers are always on their computers? ie, twitter? Well, I’ve come to find a very open and communicative valley of designers sharing their inner most thoughts with perfect strangers, why? To more or less get their ideas on paper or online. Whether they want to admit it or consciously know it, this is actually exercise for their brains. It helps to surface what you really want to think but don’t know how to think. You are probably asking yourself, where is she going with this? What I’m trying to get into your minds as designers is to let it all hang out. Don’t conform to the dull and perfectionist views of your left brains.

When you are faced with your next design project, get online. Surf all the CSS design galleries possible. The more you see, the more you can store into your subconscious and ultimately the more open your designs will become.

It means that whatever person sees, hears or otherwise experiences influences so many receptors that the person can adequately notice only a small part of the signals, leaving the unconscious mind free to hint him/her in any direction of action. ~Improvetheweb

I’m in the process of redesigning bubblebean. I fought for days, before coming up with somewhat of an innovative design and it still isn’t just right. When I finally arrived at something I thought I could work with, I noticed something very unusual. I can’t remember seeing anything like it, anywhere. Innovative or different doesn’t really get too much recognition in this business. At least we don’t think it does, of course until our SEO ranking overflows or our email is overrun with requests for business. In other words, don’t feel guilty for looking at your colleagues work. Our minds are constantly slicing up their work anyway, so it’s very unlikely that you will recreate something exactly, no matter how hard your left brain might like to. Being a good designer or even great designer isn’t accomplished by having the best or most unusual design, but one that works with everyone else’s view of working, so you need to read as well as look.

When I’m designing something new, and I want to implement something that I remember consciously seeing online, I know it’s a good idea when I can remember what I’ve read about the design and in turn can actually find it again. What I don’t realize, the way I remember seeing it in my mind, isn’t exactly how it looks now and I’m back to square one, but not really. It’s the lightbulb that empowers my late nights and early mornings. It’s thinking without implementing and ultimately getting to the design my subconscious has been thinking from the start.

So, we realize that we mustn’t tax our brains to the point of frustration, but tap into another part of them altogether. Enabling us to imagine the best of the best we have already stored, eagerly jumping up and down to be born into creation. Start the day with one thought, I need to come up with a great design for this project, instead of flooding your creative side with endless left brain necessities such as deadlines and to do lists. Cheers, Camxso

Articles of Support:

Design-Unconscious by Yuri of Improvetheweb.
Let Your Subconscious Mind Go to Work for You. by David J. Pollay.
Designers, What Inspires You? by Dave Cole.
Design Process by Gary Bastoky.
The Ever Watchful Subconscious by Rob Morris.
15 Tips To Avoid Designers Block by Matt of SFD.
How Lists Can Help Conquer Creative Blocks by Brian Hoff.

Food for Your Subconscious:

How to Spot Quality within Web Design: Examples & Tips by Liam of wefunction. Excellent article to read, see and embed into your subconscious.

CSS Design Galleries:

27 of the Best Places You Should Visit To Incredible Web Design Inspiration by AN Jay of Smashingapps.

Outside of Web Design:

Design Inspiration Everywhere by Paulo Antunes of Abduzeedo.
34 Places To Get Design Inspiration Online and Off by Cyan Ta’eed of Freelanceswitch .
60 More Places To Get Design Inspiration Online And Off by Cyan Ta’eed of Freelanceswitch.

Visual Bookmarking Inspiration:

ffffound
vi.sualize.us
weheartit

Just Inspiration:

33 New Places To Get Design Inspiration by Collis Ta’eed of Freelanceswitch.
Top 50 Inspirational Websites For Designers by Alex of aiAlex.

Typography Inspiration:

Typography Showcase by Steven Snell of Designm.ag.

Social Bookmarking:

Designgrabs
Designfloat
Top 15 Social Bookmarking Sites of 2009 by Sherif Abdou.

Merry Christmas Everyone. Boy, it’s been real and it’s been fun, but no where near “Real Fun”. As every hip Mac Mother out there, I too have ventured into the land of video games for my children. Unlike some though, I’m more hip to saving a few pennies than buying everything under the sun. Being the miserly scrooge that I am, I thought I would try to make the most out of the very expensive Wii that my children now worship. With internet knowledge at my fingertips and my undeniable persistence to get the job done, I decided to modify this glorious godly Wii.

Step 1: Software Modification via Homebrew’s Twilight Hack v0.1-beta2. Found here: (link)

Step 2: VideoGame Rental Store. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. (Actually not a bad game for youngsters.) Walking backwards Hack, hilarious. Makes you wonder just how much free time these guys have on their hands to be able to find such???

Step 3: SD Card. Well, at least that’s one thing I already had.

Step 4: Not Bricking the Wii. Followed Gizmodo’s instructions to the letter. Found here: (link)

Step 5: Wow, it really worked!! Put several useful little apps on the SD card from here: (link) and here: (link). From the Homebrew Channel I can access even more goodies using the HomeBrew Browser found here: (link)

Now, if you think that’s cool, I went, yet another step further because of the new Plasma TV Santa Claus brought. Will the big guy please give me a break?

I decided that if my children were going to worship the Wii, they might as well have all the best reasons, right? So, I thought I would enable the Wii to be a Media Hub instead of just a really cool game player, I mean, just what kind of fun would that have been?

Again, with internet knowledge in hand, the new Homebrew Channel and Browser, and obviously more time than patience, my search for “the answer” began. A complete guide was supplied to me again via Gizmodo (link). Maybe I should get them something for Christmas?

Now, for the real dilemma, how to get the Wii to play ripped DVDs from an external hard drive? Enter GeexBox. I found for my Wii, version 0.1alpha3 worked best. You can find it and all the other files that I’ve personally used here: (link) Note, blu-ray rips are a bit much for the Wii processor and Fat32 formatting won’t allow anything bigger than a 4gig transfer. GeexBox didn’t recognize HFS+, but strangely NTFS, which of course is the enemy, wasn’t a problem and allows larger files to be transferred. Also, if you don’t have some sort of NTFS read/write capability on your Mac, check out MacFUSE and NTFS-3g for free here: (link)

As a single mother of two, I try to find whatever I can, whenever I can. I am very interested to find out if some of the more skilled Wii hackers will actually come up with a Wii ISO loader? Sony, you might want to keep your ears and eyes open… Seems like something like that may already be in the works. Waninkoko Custom IOS36 rev 7 + MenuPatcher v1.0 (link)

Cheers, and have a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Camxso