The Inspiration Station

Welcome to the Inspiration Station, your one-stop shop for help getting your creative juices going when you're stuck on a design, or just need some advice.

How does this work exactly?

If you have any quotes, images, links, or even just your own advice for defeating designer's block, post them here for others to check out when they're feeling in need of a creative boost.

Here's some quotes to start out.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep"
- Scott Adams

"Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era - it's a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good."
- Clement Mok

"Design is easy. All you do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead."
- Marty Neumeier

?A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.?
- Antoine de St-Exupéry

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
- Douglas Adams

?If there's a 'trick' to it, the UI is broken.?
- Douglas Anderson

?However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.?
- Winston Churchill



Add on!

 

Simply posting to say that I love the idea of this thread and that I totally agree with Grimby. Breaks and working on other projects can be a loads of help.

It's not exactly a tip, it's more of a trick I've discovered in my case, but whenever I'm not sure what to do next, I tend to just mess around with different layers and paintbrushes. Sometimes I get a flash of inspiration from a brush and my juices are refueled.

As for the total random archietecture pics, I love the blue-bridge-like pic. For some reason that shadow looked like a stormtropper to me before I focused on it. Might be because the thing just screams Empire/TIE Fighters to me *is weird*

 

I've found in my coding life that if I had trouble making something work, I left it alone and took a nap. That cleared my head and when I came back to it, the pieces almost always fell into place.

If I wasn't sleepy, I'd read a book or watch a movie, or talk to some of my friends. My friends could always be counted on for inspiration.

 

Going to sleep is a good idea. More often than not for me, a lack of ideas or inspiration can be traced to fatigue, so taking a nap always seems to help.

 

Supposedly naps help your retention as well.

 

This site has been pretty inspirational to me lately.

 

Have you been creating a portfolio for after school?

 

Me? No not yet. I'm in the last year of my BA program for GD, after this I'm off to another school for video game/concept design. GD will be my backup. My port right now is all illustration work.

 

Awesome!

What kind of games are you interested in doing?

 

Whatever I can get a job doing. I'm not picky. If I had to choose out of anything ever, Blizzard would be great. Everyone wants to work for them though.

 

Yeah, those guys are at the top of the hill right now. That would be a great gig if you could land it.

 

Hopefully by the time I'm 60 or 70. That's the goal.

 

You never know until you try.

 

What is the possibility of you going back now?

 

I listen music when I need to create a 3d model. Helps.

 

I usually do that when I'm gaming. Helps me concentrate and focus.