How to Get Inspiration? 10 Designers Share Their Experience

As a designer we always need inspiration. That inspiration can come from just about anywhere, and we must active approach to discover it. Lucky for us, there are thousands of inspiration websites from CSS galleries to showcase blog posts. But, where is the best place to get inspiration?

Here, in this post you’ll find 10 designers share their favorite places to get design inspiration.

But before that, you may also be interested in:

• 10 Designers Share the Process of Creating their Amazing Design Work.
  In this article, you’ll learn how to other great designer process of creating their amazing design.
• 15 Helpful Advices for Beginners to Become a Better Designer.
  In this article you can find 15 design gurus share their great advices that can help you to become a better designer.

Cyrill Clunev

Q: When you are low on inspiration where is a common place that you turn to?

First place I turn to is Google with “ultra modern architecture” or something similar to that. I also have an inspiration folder on my PC where I collect unique and impressive designs. I’m a big fan of Ari Weinkle, Nelson Balaban and some other talented artist. If I need inspiration I check those guys for updates. But the most powerful thing is bad design. When you see badly executed abstract art you really think you should change the world and make a good one.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/cyrill-clunev-interview/

Robert Fori

Q: What are the things that inspire you? Can you name a few websites you use for inspiration?

Anything that surrounds me, everyday life, people who I meet, long walks, nature. I always listen to music when I work, preferable experimental electronic/ambient, science fiction movies. Regarding websites, there are a few that inspire me that I can mention: deviantart, behance network, illustration mundo, lettercult.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://www.designioustimes.com/news/interview-with-graphic-designer-robert-fori.html

Teodoru Badiu

Q: What are the things that inspire you? Can you name a few websites you use for inspiration?

It could be everything related to my life, it can be music, movies, religion, comics, toys.

I would say CGTalk, 3D Total, Juxtapox, Vimeo.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://www.designioustimes.com/news/interview-with-artist-teodoru-badiu.html

Jerico Santander

Q: Who are your favorite artists? How do you enrich your dream world? Can you share your favorite websites?

Traditional artists: Mars-1 and Josh Keyes. Digital artists: Alex Trochut and Microbot. About my favorite sites and inspiration sources: depthcore.com, behance.net, cgsociety, and deviantart.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/jerico-santander-interview/

Jurryt Visser

Q: What things inspire you? Can you name a few websites you use for inspiration?

Everything does. But lately, the world does. The nature. The society and capitalism which is really out of place these days. Aside that, just enjoy the world. Also the motivation to go to Asia and going business inspires me a lot. And about websites? Try out Behance, SlashTHREE, Depthcore and ofcourse DeviantArt (Oh, and is Google a website too? (: )

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://www.designioustimes.com/news/interview-with-digital-artist-jurryt-visser.html

Kerem Beyit

Q: Who are your favorite artists? What impressed you about them? What are your favorite websites?

I grew up drooling over the cover art by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallego, Joe Jusko. Their impact on me is unquestionable. However, as the years went by, and I really got into this thing my list grew with people like Jim Murray, Raymond Swanland, Todd Lockwood, Scott M. Fischer, and Adam Rex. I follow websites like CGTalk, cghub.com, and CG Gallery.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-digital-artist-kerem-beyit/

Francesco Liori

Q: What are the things that inspire you? Can you name a few websites you use for inspiration?

There’s not any website actually, I love historical books and history in general. Some really old artist from Art Nouveau, Pre Raphaellities and Symbolists in general gave me so much inspiration and ideas.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://www.designioustimes.com/news/interview-with-artist-francesco-liori.html

Dan Wiersema

Q: What top resources would you recommend for someone to learn icon design and interface design? Where do you go for your inspiration?

First and foremost you need to master the tools of the trade. For us they are Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The best way I see to do that, without attending a school, is following tutorials, getting books and really studying hard.

The second part is what I personally do, of course this might be different for everyone. But I find artists, art and random things I really like. I study them, I find what I like and don’t like. I do this with anything really: industrial design, product packaging, interface, 3D, random objects, seriously anything. And I keep bookmarks in my browser, a folder on my computer, and notes of all this inspiration.

When it comes time to design something, I picture what it might look like. When things I have seen pop into my mind, I mash-up my thoughts with pieces from the different inspirational images and ideas I may have found. Then I start to build my own unique idea.

As far as links go, for interface I frequent: deviantART, No Ideas But In Things and GUI.Station.

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-dan-wiersema-of-guifx/

Michal Sycz

Q: Who are some of the designers you look to for advice and inspiration? Why do you feel you can ask them for help and not someone else?

Really though, it’s hard to clearly pin the inspiration down to a few subjects, for me it’s like the inspiration is coming from everywhere. I’m not saying there are no artists who inspire me.

Pablo Alfieri from Playful is a great designer with a great set of skills, and some amazing artworks that inspire me a lot. Brock Davis and Greig Anderson are also brilliant designers. Those guys are full of creativity. I just named a few but if I really want to find some inspirations from others, I visit ffffound. There are truly some magnificent images on this blog. I just can’t get enough of that site!

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-michal-sycz-aka-noeeko/

Tomasz Opasinski

Q: What top resources would you recommend for someone to learn poster design skills? Where do you go for your inspiration?

It’s hard to say exactly where to go, since there is no place for all the answers. You basically learn as you go (!). Some learn fast, some learn slow and some are not meant to do this kind of job – simply, this applies to all professions.

There are plenty of books and DVDs about drawing and Photoshop, so don’t worry about that. What else? Hmmm… there are countless web sources for Photoshop tutorials, check out Scott’s great one.

It gets tougher when you narrow it down to posters… I would recommend books about traditional advertising… techniques, styles and tricks. There are quite a few books on classic posters – Russian, British, Polish, Chinese, etc. There is literature about contemporary posters as well, but somehow they all end on 1990 – what’s up with that?

Well, a problem with all those “poster books” is that they don’t show/tell you anything about the creative process or marketing solutions… Most of them are (or should be) in the NON-educational section, since they present only a final stage of poster (no, not gallery). Where am I going with this? I would love to publish a book about movie posters… current movie posters with educational background to each sample presented… but, unfortunately, you will have to wait for it for a while.

Other than books, there is not much to learn from when it comes to posters… you can always try to learn from the professionals, who design posters for a living, right? Ask these guys for mentoring? Workshops? Be creative… 🙂 I do have some links to poster designers on my website, or just simply google them.

Inspiration comes from everywhere… from your grandma making odd comments, kids flying kites, nature… everywhere… but the most important thing would be to preserve these memories and apply them when needed. Otherwise, you search for inspiration all day long without much being done in the meantime… 🙂

This is just one of the skills that may be helpful one day… another one is known as ADHD. Without ADHD you would be stuck with one idea for 6 hours or longer… 🙂 I call it a natural prerequisite… 🙂 I know, it’s funny, but so true. 🙂

Some of designer portfolios:

Source: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/tomasz-opasinski-interview/

How do you find design inspiration? How do you inspire yourself creatively? Feel free to share your opinions and tips with us by leaving a comment below.