I lead teams at the intersection of strategy and design. Autodidact. Polymath. Barbecue acolyte. I start fires (the good kind).
This is the fourth entry in my Design Inspiration series (wow, that almost sounds fancy), which is simply a set of posts that provide links to sites that are useful when I hit a creative block. Sites such as these prove useful when I am not happy with the direction of my current ideas, as they provide a new perspective and (re)open my mind to the realm of design possibilities.
This is the fourth entry in my design inspiration series, please see parts one, two and three for further inspiration.
I keep a list of well designed Web sites to give me a creative nudge when I get designer’s block in the midst of creating a Web site. Different designers handle this frustration in different ways. Some avoid any outside influence, while others, like me, seek out amazing work, searching for a small spark to re-ignite their creativity. There are times when this spark can come from something as simple as the shape of one curve, or the choice of color pallet. You never know. Well, at least I don’t. So, for that reason, here are some sites that I visit for inspiration.
This is the third entry in my design inspiration series, please see parts one, two and four for further inspiration.
I had planned to expand my list of design inspirations in a more timely fashion, but it appears that I forgot. Seven months have passed without an update. Ahh well, here are some more sites that I visit when I need a creativity nudge. As before, some of these sites are the destination, while others are portals to beautiful work.
This is the first entry in my design inspiration series, please see parts one, three and four for further inspiration.
Eric Meyer has published another great resource for the Web development community: Uncollapsing Margins discusses “how margin collapsing can lead to weird behaviors, why these behaviors arise, and ways to work around it when you want a different result. If you’ve ever tried to figure out why a heading’s top margin seems to disappear when it’s the first thing in a div, this article will be of interest.”
Margin collapsing is one of the most confusing aspects of CSS as it isn’t mentioned very often, and until this article, I hadn’t seen a comprehensive explanation of why it happens, and how to “un-collapse” them. Yes, some people posted work in various forums and lists, but Eric has taken the time to tie everything together.
For anyone unfamiliar with Eric, he is the author of many great CSS books, including:
Luke Wroblewski, has posted some interesting entries on his blog, Functioning Form discussing the idea of Continuums. Ultimately the idea comes down to providing the user a way to track a single topic or discussion as it continues to evolve, no matter what page they entered it from. This idea is simple in concept, but not necessarily easy to implement and maintain in a way that is immediately understandable and usable by the average user. I’ve struggled with the same need myself, as I have many entries that cross the categories I use on this site, but may well be related to, or a direct descendant of an earlier post. I am still searching for the best way to implement the idea within WordPress, the content management system I use for this site. The hard part is finding a way to create the bi-directional links easily, or even better, automatically.
Well, once I figure it out, I’ll be sure to post about it, and I’ll be sure that this entry links to that post. ;)
Luke’s posts:
Sarah and I have spent a bit of time of late talking about, and looking at fonts for use in her resume. In addition, I have been doing a good bit of design work for personal sites, so I have been in search of several fonts that are ‘perfect’ for the design at hand. So, I have decided to compile a compendium (that is a fun word to say – try it) of font sites that meet the following criteria:
While there are a ton of font sites out there, most of them overlap. As it is rather pointless to list sites with the same content, I try to choose the sites that are stable and easy to use. If you notice that any of these links are broken, use pop up ads (which my browser blocks) or have suggestions for additional sites, please drop me a line or leave a comment!
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