Inspiration and downtime - ALL ABOUT DESIGN - tribe.net

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05/05/08--09:03: Inspiration and downtime (chan 1854545)

Where do you find your inspiration? I work at a bi-monthly magazine publisher. Because of the way our cycle works, I wind up with a couple weeks between issues with not a lot to do beside burn discs and look for inspiration, so I try to make it as methodical as possible so I don't feel like a total bum. I start out by ripping apart magazines, sometimes buying a few at the bookstore, and pinning pages to a board. I also look for good ad design since a great deal of my workload is ads. I look for designer's names in the credits of well-designed magazines (I'm partial to Alexandra Ziegler who art directs Yoga Journal) and find more work they've done. I look online for good art, photography, interior design, color and pattern, anything at all. I also spend some time finding humor online to pin to the board behind the printer (which functions like our water cooler, everyone hangs out there and stares at the board). I think humor and creativity go hand in hand. Recently I've gotten pretty hooked on a collection of design blogs. They are colorful and girly-exactly what my readership likes. As a print designer, I look at these for color, pattern and fashion. http://www.designspongeonline.com/ http://www.poppytalk.blogspot.com/ http://www.doseofdesign.blogspot.com/ So...anyone have sources of inspiration they want to share? I mean for the question to be very open--if going water skiing or studying the veins in leaf varieties or flicking M&Ms at your coworkers inspires you, awesome. I'm also curious as to what everyone's workloads are like. Do you have downtime? Do you feel guilty about your downtime? How do you find productive ways to fill that time before you get slammed again?


05/06/08--12:38: Re: Inspiration and downtime (chan 1854545)

I think of downtime as research and development time. Looking into new tools or new ways of using old tools. That way I really don't feel guilty at all during the slower times


05/06/08--13:09: Re: Inspiration and downtime (chan 1854545)

oh man. I'm totally going to teach myself gradient mesh now during downtime. Technically work-related even if I won't use it much.


05/07/08--16:54: Re: Inspiration and downtime (chan 1854545)

Some places I cruise for inspiration: http://ffffound.com/ http://www.changethethought.com/ http://blog.iso50.com/ http://www.graphic-exchange.com/ http://www.digitalabstracts.com/ http://www.universaleverything.com/recent_activity http://netdiver.net/