Find, capture, and store your inspirations

Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot of questions asking me how to begin web designing and where my sources of inspiration come from. I don’t want to say something cheesy like “From the beautiful sunset splashed across the fragrant field of flowers” or “From the fourth stanza of the Swan Song by Shubert”, because that’s not true for me at all¹. For me, inspirations can comes in the following forms:

Scrapbooks
Advertisements and posters
Creative business cards
Stationary (notebooks, letter paper, etc)

But really, most of the time I’m inspired by designs from other websites. I usually find these designs from reading design blogs, visiting design galleries, blog hopping, and checking out works in Forrst or LoveDsn². Whenever I see a design I like, I add it to my Evernote notebook.

A sneak peak at my design inspiration notebook, created using EverNote

EverNote is a great program, available on both PC and Mac, and is 100% free to use. You can create “notebooks”, add pages to them, tag these pages, and even assign a url for each one. I like create a new page for each design I like, and in that page will be a full-length screenshot of the site. I use the Awesome Screenshot extension for Chrome for screencaps, and it also allows you to annotate them, but I’m usually too lazy for that.

This is a great way to store and organize designs you love³, and you can always come back to take a look at them when you’re in need of some inspiration.

If you have any tips on design inspirations and such, I’d love to hear them in your comments Error processing request

Kudos to those who can draw inspiration from nature and music ↩
These are social networks for designers and developers to share their creations ↩
Because these designs won’t stay online forever ↩

written on January 8, 2011 in Tips & Tricks, WWW

18 Comments

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http://bubblessoc.net Bubs

Downloaded it. Looks like a cool tool… thanks for sharing!

http://riyuu.org Jenny

It's pretty cool, I just wish the Evernote extensions for browsers took full-page screencaps. Then it would be teh awesome

http://www.infektia.net Malin

Thanks for the link to the Awesome Screenshot extension! I've been looking for something like that

http://riyuu.org Jenny

There are a couple more pretty nifty screencap extensions for Chrome, but this one is my favorite

http://www.cindypepper.com Cindy

Oh, wow! Evernote looks super nifty. Like you, I get the bulk of my web design inspiration from other sites, so I'll definitely have to give this a go.

http://riyuu.org Jenny

Yeah, i used to bookmark all my sites, and when I would check them again, the links were either dead or the design totally changed

http://noirfem.me Renee

I've been using it for a few months and love it! Its perfect for what you've mentioned but. I'm trying it out on phone. Perfect for inspirations you encounter on the go!

http://riyuu.org Jenny

They have apps for phones? That's awesome! I'll make a mental note to download the app when I finally have a smart phone

http://ibran.me Brandy

That's really awesome. Another great way to grab inspiration and get those creative juices flowing.

http://riyuu.org Jenny

Yep, perfect for days with design blocks!

http://essencious.org Krystal

I believe I was one of those that asked about your inspiration. Thanks for sharing how you organise your design inspiration. That's a really brill idea.

I've heard of evernotes before but never really got round to installing it. I just installed it and will definitely be using those this loads.

http://riyuu.org Jenny

Haha, I wasn't sure because it was anonymous, but thanks for asking and inspiring this post

http://www.silent-white.com/ Cat

I get a lot of inspiration from other websites too. I don't do a good job of keeping track of sites I've seen unfortunately. I didn't know about Evernote, but that's a good idea! I'll have to try it out

http://riyuu.org Jenny

I used to be like that too, but Evernote definitely changed that for me

http://blog.spicaa.net Tina

I'm not a webdesigner, but when I need inspiration for a drawing or painting, I always go to a random word generator and search for the word that pops up on a stock image site

http://riyuu.org Jenny

That's a brilliant idea! I think that would be good for searching for design inspirations as well (I'll just search the word in css galleries). Thanks so much for sharing

http://patisserie-rabbits.net Vermillion

Evernote seems interesting, I might check it out I usually use OneNote to store my links or images I find interesting.

I also get inspiration from stationary. Especially Asian ones, they have the kinda of drawing style I have. I also get inspired by song lyrics? Like certain phrases will just stick out to me and I feel like drawing it
Hannah

I LOVED this post; thanks for sharing! Until I downloaded Evernote, I "organized" images I find inspiring/interesting by dumping them into regular folders. Evernote definitely keeps things more manageable.