Design Inspiration or Food For Your Subconscious?
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.
