The design of your Web site should be determined by the information you want to communicate. Define your content before you spend a lot of time on page design. You don’t want to invest a lot of time and effort in page layout and navigation design only to later find that your design doesn’t work for your content or purpose of your site.

Check out the original article on Graham’s website. The link to the PDF is in the article.

The web design industry is just the same as any other. We probably house the largest group of individuals that can be classed as having some kind of emotional dysfunctional disorder from one day to the next. It’s in our nature to be on the ball one day and hiding under our desks the next. Some of us need company when we’re working and others need a dark room. Some listen to music and some need peace and quiet and with this, we find the different personalities appearing. In the one industry where we have a very large community (especially in the United Kingdom and United States) that often visit conferences, meet-ups and socialise, there are still a few who just don’t/can’t get on with each other for whatever reason. Let’s take a look at the a-typical personalities in web design.

The Legend

If you imagine someone on par with how Zeus was in greek mythology then you’re probably getting close to the web industry legend. This person has been around, they’ve done everything on all levels and are well respected. They listen and still learn, they rarely bark but when they stamp down their mighty fist you had better damn well listen. They don’t talk for the sake of it, they don’t force you to listen but if you did you’d learn more in 5 minutes than you could in 5 months. This is ‘The Legend’ ladies and gentlemen, give them the respect they deserve.

The ‘I Know Better’ Person

You offer your advice but this person really doesn’t care. No matter what you’ve done and what you have achieved. The fact that you might be able to offer some valuable information, the ‘I Know Better’ really couldn’t give a monkey. He/She is so full of their own importance that they feel like you’re attacking them by offering advice instead of just listening and learning. Nothing you can do is good enough and they are not always right, but they’re never wrong.

The Belittler

Whether you’ve just started out in the industry or you’ve been in it years, this person couldn’t be any more of an ass. You’ve done something great, they’ve done something ten times better and it doesn’t stop there. You could have been perfecting your design for weeks, getting feedback and iterating and when this person sees it they laugh, they snigger and shout you down but they NEVER offer you any constructive feedback. They feel big standing on their soap box acting the big man. They forgot where they came from and where they started. This person doesn’t deserve to be in ‘our’ industry.

The Sheep

Lacking in creativity or just in awe of the so-called web-celebs, the sheep is a follower. They’re not scared of following trends but are very scared of straying from the norm. They may not have a style but they’re sure to be very inspired by the people that do. They approve of anything said by anyone, they rarely ever disagree to make sure they’re liked by everyone without realising that everyone else would just like them to have their own opinion. They never do any real harm, they’re just there in the industry, following in line.

The Grey Man

Undeniably the most dangerous person in the industry for you. The grey man stands at the back of the class, watching, listening and learning. They live for what they do and no one ever sees them. They never over indulge in industry discussion, they’re happy to go un-noticed from a vocal point of view. Every time they finish a piece of work it wow’s everyone but because the rest of the industry doesn’t know who they are they don’t stay on the radar for long. The grey man will professionally develop faster than anyone else in our industry and generally the grey man will become ‘The Legend’ at a later date.

The Helper

The Helper’s are like our industry Red Cross. They have band-aids, magic cream and more. They love helping out whether it be offering feedback or creating tutorials. They love writing and speaking to help make our industry better on a whole. They’re generally very knowledgeable and liked because they give something back when everyone else doesn’t have the time. They make money from doing what they love, giving back to the industry with those little things, that we need every day.

The Hater

The Hater is like the classroom bully but with less sense. They just can’t get on with anybody. They lack respect when it should be given and don’t really care about any opinions or views from the time-served professionals. They have to critique everything in a negative manner, nothing is every positive. Whilst these hater’s don’t give any respect to the rest of the industry, they don’t deserve any either. At some point in the future they’ll realise that they went about everything wrong and if only they’d listened and kept their mouth shut, everything probably would have turned out better for them.

Do you recognise any of the above personalities? I’ve met some of them and am happy to class some of the people I know as ‘The Legend’ status. Have you met anymore personalities that I’ve not listed above? Let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

An Old Process

The oldest process consisted of having an idea then rushing to the computer, opening Photoshop and then sitting there until I had something I was happy with. This could take anything from an hour or two to losing an entire night or afternoon. This usually wouldn’t produce the ‘best’ design either, in that time I’d have changed the layout at least 5 times and scrapped by best idea and started all over again. It really was a design nightmare from hell as when you scrap the major idea you had, it brings the overwhelming feeling that you’ve lost your groove and you’re not going to get it back anytime soon.

A Refined Process

Quick Sketches. I refined my process by quickly scribbling down my ideas into my notebook so I had something to follow before directly moving into Photoshop. Whilst this gave me a lot more direction when I was in Photoshop, I wasn’t necessarily going down the right path and 75% of the time I’d be in the same position as before. I’d get to a certain certain point and scrap my idea, this just elongated the process and I’d sit for another few hours trying to piece something together.

The REAL Process

Sketching + Iteration = The Real Deal. The previous two versions of my process were used for quite a while, it has not been until recently that I’ve changed it considerably. Over the past few months and for the foreseeable future I’ll be doing a lot of design work and something needed to dramatically change. I certainly have a time restraint for the amount of projects I have lined up and needed to change my process to better enable me to work more methodically through my designs.

Sketching is incredibly important, I can’t stress how worthwhile it is as part of your design process. It’s not something that you should think about doing, it’s something that you SHOULD be doing. Don’t care whether it’s on your notebook, the back of an envelope or in something like Balsamiq. It’s supposed to be rough, but it can be iterated upon which is the route I’m now going down. Instead of having the one initial sketch that I work on I now iterate the first sketch. Why? Because that’s it, it’s the first sketch. It’s a very brief sketch/wire frame which could be a good idea but not necessarily the best one. The quickest way for me to make this better (for me) is use the good old pencil and paper. For my most recent design I improved on a homepage sketch 4 times over the space of 24-48 hours. This gave me the time to move away from the idea and come back to it with a refreshed mind instead of sitting senselessly working on a half-assed idea.

The 4 different sketches dramatically changed over that time. If I’d tried to do the same in Photoshop it would have taken me twice the time and I may not have even came up with the final idea as I would have probably been all stressed out with forcing a design. Note: Never force design!

Doing Something Different

Over recent weeks, a range of different web design processes have shown up on dribbble with Matthew Smith, Brian Hoff and Jeffrey Kalmikoff all showing different dribbbles of their work in Photoshop. All three presented their work in greyscale, something I hadn’t done before. Matthew went on to explain the reasons for doing this as the discussion ensued across all three dribbble posts. It was an interesting take on planning out your design to keep you from adding the detail and concentrating more on layout and hierarchy.

I liked all three concepts, Jeffrey’s and Matthew’s ‘DesignLite’ were very similar whereas Brian went to look at both the grid and layout whilst working with very minimal colour. After working on my last project where again I couldn’t help but work on the finer details too early so when I started my new project I made a point of starting out the right way.

I did my sketches, one of which you can see above. The sketches were very rough so I headed in to Photoshop and instead of immediately going in to the design I started laying out what was in my sketch in different coloured grey boxes. These boxes would simply show the position of elements I’d had in my sketch and where I thought elements could go. I noticed early on that instead of sticking to my usually definite grid layout, I started mixing things up a little. I thought about offsetting objects on the page, how the different elements would interact with the user. I felt a lot more confident about the way I was headed with the design.

As soon as I’d filled out the majority of the page with the grey boxes, I simply went back over and started replacing the boxes with the actual designed elements. This reduced quite a lot of time as I was happy with the layout BEFORE I even looked at the finer details. The design has progressed somewhat from the image shown above and dribbble’s of it can be seen here.

Don’t Care About The Time

I’ve realised something big through the refining both my web and logo design process. Don’t be afraid to spend a lot of time on your process, you’ll make it up later on. You need to spend more time, a lot more, to get the best of the ideas in your head.

What about you? What is your web design process like? If you liked this article you should follow me on Twitter.

Full Name and Age please

Martin Bean (Martin Christopher Bean if we’re being pedantic) and 20 years.

Favourite Biscuit and Drink?

Fox’s Crunch Creams and a cup of coffee. Together.

Last Book you read and the last movie you saw?

The last “book” I read was actually a graphic novel: “Batman: The Long Halloween” by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Someone referred it to me as it was apparently one of the graphic novels The Dark Knight team took influences from for the movie’s story (and it was interesting to see those similarities, albeit subtle). The last movie I saw was “Angels and Demons” on DVD. I thought it was a bit pants to be honest. My girlfriend assures me the book is far better, so I may have to pick up a copy to see if she’s right.

Where and when did it all start?

I’m not sure how or exactly when it started. I remember being in maybe the second year or secondary school (so about 12) and picking up a book on HTML in my school’s library. I gave up after the first chapter. I would later re-visit the idea of learning HTML and building websites and was a fair bit more successful than my first attempt.

I also had a copy of FrontPage on my home PC, but worked religiously in the code view. Crafting HTML pages and getting irked with FrontPage’s habit of inserting Microsoft specific tags and removing them way before I heard of standards compliant mark-up or what it meant. CSS then came soon after.

I began subscribing to Practical Web Design magazine (a now-defunct offshoot of .net magazine) and that helped my HTML/CSS skills considerably in a quick amount of time.

At college, I didn’t really progress my skills that much. I had a good knowledge of HTML and CSS and was the go-to guy with my peers for help, but other than that I wasn’t going anyway technically, but picked a hell of a lot up in terms of the theory of web design and design in general. In my second year of college, I got a placement with a leading new media design agency in Newcastle. They threw me in the deep end, telling me I had two months to learn PHP (which saw me end up swimming rather than sinking) and got my foot in the door to employment in Newcastle. I would move to Newcastle from my home town of Darlington little over a year later after a couple of stints at other agencies in the region.

Is there anyone in the industry you’re enjoying the work of at the moment?

Andy Clarke. But that vested interest is biased as he’s redesigning the home page for CannyBill, a product by dpivision.com Ltd, whom I used to work for.

What does a general day consist of for you?

A week day usually consists of getting up at around 7:00am. I hop on a Quaylink to Newcastle City Centre, then get on another bus to work. At the moment my days are spent working on a super-secret project, but other than that I’m a web developer for a digital online marketing agency, so there’s never a shortage of projects. But currently I working away developing a social networking site in PHP/MySQL.

What’s your cup of tea, front end dev or back end dev?

Definitely back-end development. I thought I would be a web designing, but turns out my calling was in development.

You’re a huge fan of MMA and set up yourfightsite.com, who do you think will be able to take the title from Brock Lesner? (I’m a fan also).

Good question. Brock Lesnar has this stigma that due to being a former professional wrestler and a multiple-time WWE Champion that he shouldn’t do well in a “real” fight sport, but the fact of the matter is, is the guy is a monster. His only downfall is his lack of experience in MMA fights which was glaringly visible in his UFC bout with Frank Mir back in February 2008 I think it was. That will be Brock’s downfall – a lack of experience. However, with each and every fight he closes that gap, and no one can go toe-to-toe with him in terms of size or strength.

Are you a PC or a Mac and do you have a reason for choosing one over the other?

PC, simply for the fact that I’ve never had enough money for a Mac when I had to buy a new machine at home. And at work we all use PCs. However, if I had the option I would definitely grab a Mac.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I think it’s dead set that PHP is my core skill set, but in the future I hope to expand my knowledge of web technologies. I want to be a versatile programmer and have a great knowledge of various languages. Java interests me, .NET not so much though. I don’t want PHP to limit my capabilities in the realm of server-side development or programming. I definitely want to become my au fait with AJAX as well.

Will you be heading to any conferences over the next year?

I’ve been wanting to attend a conference for the past year or so, but haven’t been able to whether it was because of money or lack of time off etc. I’m really pining to go to one, so think I may try and attend one in the North East first, just to see what’s involved, and then go for a larger one down south. Richard Quick’s Bamboo Juice conference piqued my interest somewhat and was about to go until something came up at the last minute, despite the nice chap offering me a discounted ticket!

Thanks to Martin for getting involved, check out Martins work at yourfightsite.com

Thanks to Paul for taking the time out to get involved in the interview.

Full Name and Age please

Paul Randall, 22 years old

Favourite Biscuit and Drink?

It has to be a mug of tea, and Crunch Creams. I could literally eat a whole pack in one go!

Last Book you read and the last movie you saw?

I have just finished reading Thinking In Type, by Ellen Lupton, and was captivated by District 9 at the cinema.

Where and when did it all start?

After my A-Levels, I left school to work as an IT Administrator for a manufacturing firm—doing the usual fixing PC and printer problems, but soon became tried of the monotony of it. I was doing a day-release Foundation Degree course in Computing & Internet Technology at the time, and so I offered to redesign the companies’ site for them. I was always a creative person and had made personal websites in my spare time before, but when it launched, that’s when I knew I wanted to design and build sites as a job.

A few months later I noticed a job advertisement in a local paper which was looking for a Web Designer/Developer. I applied and had a phone call on the Friday to come to an interview on the Saturday. I was offered the position straight after! I stayed with that company for just over a year, working on in-house ASP sites in SQL Server and some client work before moving to my current job in June 2008, where I now work predominantly with HTML, PHP and MySQL.

Is there anyone in the industry you’re enjoying the work of at the moment?

I really admire the work of Tim Van Damme, Jina Bolton, Vitor Lourenço and Greg Wood.

What does a general day consist of for you?

I will get up at about 8, catch up on Twitter and head for work just before 9am. You will usually find me with the headphones on, listening to Daft Punk or The Prodigy working on the latest piece of client work in either Dreamweaver or Photoshop.

After work I tend to play around with new bits of HTML5 or CSS3, catch up on RSS feeds or play on the XBox.

What’s your cup of tea, front end dev or back end dev?

I really enjoy the creativity of graphic design, so front end dev is the thing I enjoy most; but the best thing about my job is the fact I work in both, and love switching between them. If I had to choose though, it would be front-end, every time.

You work on various projects, which has been your favourite so far?

In terms of a personal project, it would have to be the H1 Debate (http://h1debate.com). It was such a simple concept, but from the comments it has had, it really caused people to think about how they use the H1 tag, and about coding their sites in general. It also gained a lot of exposure, which I really didn’t expect.

I am always pleased with the work I produce at my job, but never showcase my employers’ work.

I have also recently begun creating monthly wallpapers. I really like the design challenges it creates,   as it keeps me trying to find new inspiration, but I missed last months’ due to me working on my personal site relaunch.

Are you a PC or a Mac and do you have a reason for choosing one over the other?

I have always worked on a PC and currently use Vista on a daily basis. This is simply because the   places I have worked for have been PC-based. My laptop is also a PC, running XP, but I will switch to a Mac when it needs replacing as I need to see what all the fuss is about!

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I’d love to focus on just designing more, but continuing to work in a small team. I really enjoy the involvement you can have in a project—seeing it from start to finish.

Will you be heading to any conferences over the next year?

I haven’t got any planned at the moment, but I always try to catch up on the speakers’ slide-shows, or watch the talks online.

Paul Randall – www.paulrandall.com

Overall there was not a significant winning idea on what to do, with some retailers not bothering at all. Below are the companies which did…

Starbucks have gone for a full design of red, but only on their .com website.

Borders are sticking to the red theme using some snow as a nice touch.

macy’s are sticking with their red homepage after their fall sales design.

The WWF Shop have gone all red, working in some nice design to the header to get into the festive spirit.

Wyevale Garden Centres have added as much red design in to their ecommerce shop as possible without breaking up their usual green appearance.

Burton used a red background with subtle Christmas trees to bring their ecommerce store into the festive season.

It’s SNOW TIME!

Superdrug added in some snowflakes to their header as well as a main image to their homepage for Christmas.

A pretty lame attempt by Boots to add in some Christmas spirit to their website.

hmv.com always getting into the spirit of things with their snowy purple background.

Brown Bag clothing company went all out with a snowy background and header artwork.

ebuyer.com

BHS

Tiffany & Co use some very subtle snowflakes in their background effectively.

Background Art

TopShop not straying from their brand colours but using an effective background image for Christmas.

Schuh using by far the least organised design for Christmas, not much thought it seems.

REPUBLIC are another high street and online retailer who have gone all out to provide some good Christmas design on their website.

next – subtlety is key. Not to much, not to less. A nice touch.

La Senza have used some good background images together with some other artwork on the homepage for Christmas.

JJB Sports have made good use of their blue branding to use on their background imagery.

Banana Republic have shown how easy it is to create a Christmas ecommerce design by using something so simple.

Christmassy Imagery

Below are online retailers who added some simple imagery to convert their online shops into the Christmas spirit.

wallis

Pumpkin Patch

Marks and Spencer

LUSH

Littlewoods

John Lewis

IQVC

House of Fraser

Bloomingdales

American Eagle

Brusheezy have a massive range of brushes which you can filter to gain access to their hundreds of FREE grunge photoshop brushes.

Bittbox have 5 sets of grunge wings providing 10 brushes in total.

The Outlaw Design Blog have a range of photoshop brushes which are free. Some of the best brushes in this post are on that blog.

We Function have a free grunge brush set holding 33 subtle grunge textures and effects. They have a lot more to offer so head over.

Smashing Magazine doing what they do best and providing 74 grungy brushes of the best quality to download and use.

youthedesigner have a range of grunge photoshop brushes, head over to download 200 grunge brushes.

A small but quality selection of grunge photoshop brushes to be downloaded from benblogged.com

Noupe have managed to accumulate a list of 1000+ grunge photoshop brushes, definitely worth looking at.

If you’re looking for grunge photoshop brushes checkout the links above and get your free downloads.

Smaller charities are often supported by local companies and offered free services in return for some press coverage. Larger charities however can offer money in return for an outstanding website. You’d think that many design agencies working with a charity would do their utmost to prove their worth and show their skill set in return for free press, from the research which we did of a wide range of UK and International Charities this is not the case.

In this showcase, you will find a variety of charity websites with informative beautiful design. The following designs are 10 of the best Charity websites out there.

Red Nose Day

Red Nose Day has an awesome, clean, hand drawn style.

“In schools, offices and homes across the land, everyone wears – you’ve guessed it – the latest Red Nose and does whatever tickles their fancy to raise cash. You name it, they do it!”

Children in Need

The BBC Children in Need charity has always been a Pudsey Bear related charity. One day every year in the UK is Children in Need day, this culminates with a huge TV show on the evening for around 6-8 hours often raising £20 million + and often millions more after the event. The design for Children in Need from the BBC incorporates the TV show into the website.

Barnardo’s

Barnardo’s is another very cleanly designed website, structured to provide information and showcase whichever campaign they are working on at any one time.

WWF – for a living planet

The WWF is pretty simple, they say what they do and tell you how you can help.

Asthma UK

Asthma UK provide a lot of information on their homepage. It’s colourful and informative.

Action for Children

Hand Drawn and designed with the Children in mind. Action for Children is another clean and informative design and structurally built to provide the information where necessary.

Great Ormond St. Hospital

One of the largest and well known charities in the UK, the Great Ormond St. website lends itself towards being very visual with the bright blue contrasting against the usual Great Ormond St. purple.

Oxfam

Most people know Oxfam, and from what I can tell they’ve recently undergone a redesign. Not the best of the bunch but certainly above par in comparison with most charity website designs.

Save the Children

Being one of the only websites in this showcase which is left aligned, it is not uncommon to still find most charity websites done this way. Unicef and other large charities can still be found at that side of the webpage.

WRVS

The WRVS is quite small in comparison to the other showcase websites, however the use of color to section of parts of the website is well done. The WRVS brand was revitalised some years ago and has grown in the public eye because of their work with the UK Armed Forces.

Elliott Kember formerly of Carsonified.

Mark Boulton design is simplistic and clean

Tim Van Damme, small website recently cloned before Tim stepped in.

The clean typographic desk reference design

Words are pictures by Craig Ward

Less is more at Artifice Studios

So thin, so simple.

The web is still evolving according to Travis Gertz.

Simple, clear portfolio site from Sam Bowler

You dont need a busy ecommerce design to sell products.

A DJ website which doesn't need to be flash to be effective.

Simple, like a mac app should be.

Alvin Chan uses a dark and clean design to showcase his work.

Excellent use of space by Mark Wieman

Showing that you dont know how to be effective.

Clear and concise for Jamie Gregory

Designed by Elliot Jay Stocks for Samantha Cliffe

Everything on one simple slick little site.

A clear way to show portfolio work from Berit Somme

Nice and clean design blog

Excellent lifestream by Mark Jardine

Although the b group use a large background image, their overall site uses the least amount of space of the showcased sites.

Jason utilises a jquery portfolio to minimise the amount of space his website takes up.

Minimal space, large portfolio!

cameron.io doing minimalistic design well

Awesome.

Its so easy to show more with less

Minimal is cool

The French minimalists

So there you go, a showcase of 30 minimalist design. It’s not difficult and in many ways beautiful!

You turn to talk, which are your favorite clean designs? Is there anyone we have missed who would like to be included in Part 2? Get in touch.

I wanted to find out where 30 designers are when they feel most inspired. Was there one place where a creative person can be when all of the ideas come together?

The place where I’m most inspired is absolutely bathroom related, 80% shower, 20% on the pot. However gruesome that sounds, the bathroom is like in inspirational supernova.

Aaron Irizarry – www.thisisaaronslife.com

I would say that I am most find myself inspired most when I am in my backyard, it is very quiet and serene, and usually if I am back there it is some of the only quiet time I get.

Other than that… I am a pretty random person, and inspiration can strike me at any time, from the car to the kitchen… sometimes it just pops into my head.

Oliver Ker – www.oliverker.com

Inspiration occurs in lots of places, I wouldn’t say I go to one place to get inspiration, but If I get some of my ideas is either in car or at that point just before you go to sleep – and I never get to write them down. (the only times I get to think about things)

Sam Brown – http://sam.brown.tc

Super question.

I feel most inspired in two places, the shower, most likely because I’m alone with just my thoughts and the relaxing sound of running water, nothing is better at clearing my head. Also in bed at night trying to wind-down from a busy day working, I always keep a notepad and pen on my bedside table as I often have many great ideas or inspiring thoughts when I’m trying to drift off to sleep. Probably because I’m too busy thinking about the days ahead and what I need to accomplish, any quiet personal time is thus my real answer by the sounds of it.

David Legget – www.betterblogger.net

I find a great deal of inspiration when I’m attending conferences or local meetup groups. People tend to be my source of inspiration, and it’s in places where we convene that I have the opportunity share ideas and perspectives on different interests of mine. These places encourage taking action and promote new ideas for my business, my goals, and my design process.  The room itself is not important (we’ve met in universities, hotels, churches, even outside), it’s the gathering of people that inspires conversation and discovery.

Pasquale D’Silva – http://darkmotion.com

For me, it actually is ‘where’ that inspires me. A ‘place’ is the answer to ‘where’.

Places contain an infinite collection of elements that define them from surroundings, people, embedded culture which naturally produce moods and tones. So because places inspire me, I don’t have a single location I am at when I am most inspired. In fact, I was so hungry for more amazing things to stimulate thought, that I just moved across the world ( From Australia, to Vancouver, Canada).

I guess in a generality, I’d say that the places I am most inspired are where there is a bustle of new people. People build culture, so the surrounding environment is also very much shaped by the types of people that exist within them. I’m an animator & illustrator, so life is really an essential resource to draw from. Airports, big cities, bank queues; anywhere with a diversity of people does the trick.  I’ll often take a sketchbook out with me to scribble caricatures, & take notes about ideas that spring up. The best ideas seem to come sub-consciously, so just being away from a computer or drawing table is enough to let ideas fire around.

David Airey – www.davidairey.com

It differs, but sometimes I’m inspired in bed. Now I’m not professing to be a sex god. Far from it. I’m saying that being in self-employment makes it difficult to switch off at night, and when I climb into bed I get business / design ideas floating about.

Jacob Cass – http://justcreativedesign.com

I seem to get my best ideas is when I am brainstorming which is usually in my office, on the desk parallel with my computer desk (a whole 180 degree swivel in my chair). I am most comfortable here and this is usually where my ideas come from. Other than that, it would be in bed when trying to go to sleep.

David Perel – http://www.from-the-couch.com

Without a doubt the best place I get inspired is at a specific place and time.

Its on a Saturday night between 7pm and 1 am and its at my desk. The reason it’s at that time is because one of our radio stations plays my favourite music (deep house music) and they play it well. It’s got to the point where I have committed myself to design on a Saturday between those times and it works every time. Obox Design’s ’09 site, all our themes and all our wallpapers were created during those hours.

So for me its at my desk, but at only at a specific time.

Liam McKay – http://www.wefunction.com

I don’t think there’s any one place that stands out as a big source of ideas for me. But one place I do tend to think about ideas and creative solutions a lot clearer, is when I’m driving on my own. I really love being alone in my car listening to my favorite music, enjoying the occasional good weather and relatively good scenery. I think maybe the because I find driving quite relaxing has something to do with the fact I get a lot of good ideas while driving, and also coming home from a quick drive tends to give me an extra boost and thirst for getting my work done.

Jonathan Snook – http://snook.ca

That’s a very interesting question. Mostly, I’m sitting at my chair in my office. Not very exciting, I know. Otherwise, I’m often inspired by buildings and architecture. Therefore, I’ll be inspired when I’m just walking down the street and see a window sign or see a building accent. I try and store those ideas away in the back of my head for when I’m in the thick of designing.

Jon Phillips – http://www.spyrestudios.com

I like that, great idea!

My best ideas and inspiration usually comes at night when I go to sleep. For some reason as soon as I put my head on the pillow, ideas start popping in my head. So I now keep my Moleskine notebook close and write those ideas down.

Chris Coyier – http://css-tricks.com

A lot of times it is where I happen to be about 15 minutes after I’ve left the computer. Could be sitting down to have a bite to eat for example. I haven’t been away from it long enough to have “shaken it off” so my mind is still pretty focused on work, yet I’m taking in all the fresh stimuli of being out and about. I think that combination leads to some “ah-ha” moments pretty regularly.

Much to my annoyance, I have inspirational moment a lot of times as my mind is wrapping up loose ends right before I drift off to sleep at night, which can cause sleep problems since I typically need to wake up and at least jot them down so they are not lost!

Thomas Ulbricht – http://sharebrain.info

So where am I when i am most inspired? Wait …let me think … think think think …. hmmm… think think … seems like sitting in front of the computer don’t inspire me.
So wait a moment, i will be right back … just taking a bath………….. ok back. Well that was nice … and i felt some inspiration coming … but damn … now i am sitting in front of this computer again. and. the.inspiration.goes.away.need food! brb again ……………………………………………………………………….

Ahhh that was good. sitting on the balkony, eating a great non healthy sandwich, watching people on the streets…but still no big inspirations.

Hmmm if i think about it there isn’t such a thing as THE place for inspiration. I think that a creative idea always based on the need to make something better. That can happen everywhere. Even at normaly “not so inpiring places”. So if you take a closer look you must be “everywhere and nowhere” – it’s about where your brain can be.
Inspiration comes from imagination. So where should you be when you want to be inspired? Anywhere you want.

Elliot Jay Stocks – http://elliotjaystocks.com

Being outside in the midst of nature with hardly anything man-made around is probably when I feel most inspired, I’d say, but that’s a ‘general’ kind of inspiration about everything; not specifically design. In terms of inspiration that has more of an influence on my actual work, I think I tend to be most inspired when flicking through beautiful books. Books about design, books about anything; I just find book design to be extremely inspirational. That moment – where I’m standing in a book shop, looking at all different kinds of books and feeling completely immersed in all those sources of inspiration – that’s when I feel excited about where that inspiration could take me.

Mike Kus – www.thethingswemake.co.uk

Interesting!   I’m anywhere normally – i get inspired anywhere… but I guess there are a few recurring places.
When I’m lying in bed in the dark before I go to sleep. I get ideas then I have to keep turning over to type them into my phone as a reminder for the next day.

When I’m out running – today I ran past a shop window which gave me a great idea for a site I’m working.

When I’m listening to music – This can be anywhere. As Soon I put a great record on I think about my work in a totally different way.
When I’m on the train… I guess i get inspired when I’m in a place where I have time to think without interruption.

Lee Munroe – www.leemunroe.com

lol bathroom related was one of the first things that sprung to mind for me too.

Answer: When I’m out for a run; it gives me a chance to get away from work, clear my mind and think about things. Then I’m raring to go once I get back to the laptop. Oh and when I’m at the pub or at friends house having drinks. I always come up with ideas then, but of course they don’t sound as good the next day.

Veerle Pieters – http://veerle.duoh.com

Interesting approach indeed.

I think for me the meaning of “where” would be perceived as “where is my mind” at that moment. My mind is disconnected from the real world at that moment. I’m in a very relaxed state of mind, only focused on what I’m creating, preferably with my favorite (deep house) music in my ears. That’s when I’m at the office sitting at my desk, in production mode as sort of speak. If I’m not working, or at the office, inspiration comes randomly at any place really. It’s all based on what I see and how I’m feeling at that moment: on my bike in the middle of nature, sitting in a couch in a nice modern looking interior, be surrounded with nice colors,…  I’m very easily distracted, and it’s at moments like that that my mind wonders off and I get inspired. It could also be in bed, right before I fall asleep, because at that moment my mind is very relaxed.

Chris Spooner – www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk

I actually find a lot of inspiration while browsing clothes stores, the printed promotional signage and labels are often designed using bright colours and abstract designs that tie into a specific theme. This also changes dramatically between women’s clothes, Summer/Winter fashion as well as the more leisure and extreme sports brands.

Jason Santa Maria – www.jasonsantamaria.com

I always seem to come up with my best ideas while showering in the morning.

Grace Smith – www.gracesmith.co.uk

Usually right before i drift into sleep, so i keep my iPod Touch and trusty Moleskine on my beside cabinet for those moments when inspiration strikes. Most of my best ideas have hit at this time so it tends to be a time when the ideas flow naturally for me. I simply jot down a quick summary and bullet points of the main idea, ready to be fleshed out the next day.

In the past i said to myself ‘i will remember that in the morning’, and never did which as most people know is just downright annoying. Due to this it’s been a force of habit to always have a way to record my ideas quickly and efficiently.

Daniel Matthews – www.daniel-matthews.com

I find that inspiration tends to strike whenever I least expect it, whenever I’m away from a computer or as far away from a pen and paper as possible! Which usually means that I forget my best ideas. Thankfully since I got an iPhone, the number of forgotten brainwaves have decreased.

Prior to that though, my secondary place of inspiration was when seated on the toilet! I don’t know why, but it’s the place I seem to think most clearly. I usually bound down the bathroom stairs with a million ideas for whatever I’m working on, after washing my hands of  course!

Ryan Downie – www.ryandownie.com

I would have to say I am most inspired when at home, even though I do most of my work at the office for the agency that I work for. It just feels more relaxed and I can listen to music (sadly we not allowed to in the office due to phones etc). Something about working on my own in the late evenings with a bit of music ( whatever it be Eminem, Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z, Coldplay etc) seems to really get the creative juices flowing.

Adelle Charles – www.fuelyourcreativity.com

When I’m at my computer I am the least inspired, since I pretty much sit in front of it all day. Believe it or not I’m usually in the car driving when I get a brilliant idea or think of something new. Often times I also get inspired while outside walking my dogs!

Fabio Sasso – www.abduzeedo.com

Usually I’m in front of my computer doing other things but with my sketch book. However sometimes I need to go to other places to refresh my mind. I have to say when I’m practicing exercises such as running or surfing, I always get great ideas too. But one thing that is really important is that I have to understand exactly what I’m looking for in terms of target audience and their needs.

Chris Merrit – www.pixelightcreative.com

Typically I get inspired by other designers, which means I’m usually sitting at my Mac, looking at their work…….not very weird or wonderful.

Daniel Cork – www.corkingdesign.co.uk

I get inspired in many different places. I find the warm morning shower to be a great place, also the boring train journey to work in the mornings is a pretty good too, I always make sure to keep a moleskin in my bag to write down/sketch out ideas. I get inspired in other locations also, these are normally at times when I am relaxing and not really thinking about anything in particular.

Matt Draper – www.identitygraphics.org

Most days its first thing in the morning in my kitchen. As I ponder my days work the ideas simply pop in my head.
I feel rushed some days to get to the computer and get them into form… before my mind looses them forever.

Adii – http://adii.co.za

I’d have to go for when I’m driving in my car (alone) and listening to some proper rock tunes.

Lisa Moseley – www.lisamoseley.com

As it turns out my answer is neither weird nor wonderful really! It definitely is an interesting question, and had me really thinking about where I am when I find inspiration:

“For me, inspiration is often random and surprising. However if I had to narrow it down to a few locations I would say in my car, listing to my favorite tunes loud enough to really feel the music. Somehow the time alone, along with taking in all the surrounding sights, colors, people, movement accompanied by bands I really dig gets me inspired to explore new ideas.

Another is when I’m walking my dogs. No music, no talking, just us and nature. Even just small stroll around my neighborhood is enough to break the cycle and allow new ideas to manifest and grow. I do have to say though, inspiration can often be found anywhere and everywhere- most likely when you’re not expecting it, especially when you’re on a project that is exciting and inspiring in itself

Sarah Parmenter – www.youknowwhodesign.com

My most inspirational place is a little village in Spain called Caleta. I go there every year and since it’s only had electricity the past 10 years the internet isn’t wide spread down there, which means completely switching off from everything. I normally take down some great books, relating to web design, and it gives me time to think through the past years work and where I’d like to be heading toward this time next year when I’m back again…

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who got involved in the post! The emails were flying back and forth over a 10 day period and I really appreciate you all for taking the time out and getting back to me.

So… where are you most inspired?

I’d like to hear from other designers / developers or speakers about where they are when they’re most inspired, leave comments below.