I want to thank Brian for inviting me to guest post on Elite By Design; I was quite flattered. Only thing is – all of a sudden I had an inspiration / writers block, so I decided to go with it – thus the theme of this post. Now I know some of these suggestions are obvious but they are so simple they are easy to forget. Grab a cup of coffee, read through the post and feel free to add what you do to relieve your block or get things done – maybe it will help others!
Grab a pad and fast! Start writing down things that come to mind. It truly doesn’t matter if the thoughts are relevant, somehow they always lead to an idea. Lists with random words are always helpful.
Pick up some magazines that are related to your niche. You’d be surprised how just flipping through your favorite mags can lead to inspiration. Last week I went to the bookstore and picked up two issues of a magazine that I had never read before; Computer Arts. It happened to be the typography issue which sparked a post called “Typography is Sexy“. Other good magazines I often pick up are Communication Arts, Layers Magazine, Inked & JPG Magazine.
Write an Action / To do list. Alot of times I feel overwhelmed that I have so much that I cannot focus at the task at hand. The Action line from Behance inspired me to get things done. As of late I have been also trying out Evernote, it’s a great tool for productivity if you’d rather put everything online.
Sketch or doodle. The best ideas come to me when I’m in boring meetings. I sit there with my moleskine notebook and draw. Geez I hope my boss doesn’t read this...
Take a walk/exercise – or just grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine!
Talk to friends in your field and bounce ideas off of each other. I use twitter to throw ideas out there and network with people in my field. If you utilize twitter you can search for people just like you. If your a designer check out 50+ Designers to Follow on Twitter.
Open up your favorite RSS Reader of choice (mine is NetNewsWire) to see what others are talking about, you may just get inspired by someone else’s idea and branch off to an even better idea. If your into design/blogging you can check out this list of feeds.
Check out some new social bookmarking sites geared towards your niche, there is plenty out there! For visual online inspiration I use Pattern Tap, Vi.sualize.us, Scrnshots, FaveUp and Flickr. For content I use Digg and Del.icio.us.
If you want design inspiration geared towards web design & design blogs, I highly recommend these great articles: 50 Must-Read Resources For Incredible Web Design, 33 New Places for design inspiration, 60 More Places to Get Design Inspiration and 34 Places to Get Design Inspiration.
Do something different, use Life as Inspiration.
I hope you enjoyed your Monday morning inspiration, I know I usually need it on Mondays! Feel free to let us know what you do to solve your design / writer’s block!
