{Interactive Web Design Blog}

For web designers, graphic designers, or any type of artist, it is important to always keep growing.  When we become stagnant, so does our work.  Since I live in Vancouver, I have no trouble finding inspiration in this beautiful city every day.  However, we need all different kinds of inspiration to keep our work fresh and compelling.  Today, I’m going to go over a few of my favorite inspirational websites that I visit nearly every day to keep those creative gears a turning!

One of the websites I follow on a daily basis is called Design Milk

Design Milk is an online magazine focused on modern design.  They cover it all on this site.  Architecture, technology, furniture, Interior design and even fashion.  Their perspective on design is wonderfully fresh, and their taste is impeccable. I like to be surprised, and every time I look at Design Milk I see something that blows my mind.

Here are some examples of modern design that they showcase on their website:

Mehrzeller, the Multicellular caravan.  The tent trailer just got WAY cooler in my book.

Hallstand by Oliver Tilbury

A coat rack/hat stand, umbrella holder and bench in one. I also love the combination of the woodsy, natural coatrack, and the geometric, and sharp bench.

I Make My Case a really fun interactive site that allows you to customize your own designs while using base designs from Artists.

I choose to believe that Scabetti made this absolutely stunning glass shoal in honor of Robot Salmon

While this isn’t your typical web designers(i.e. Smashing Magazine or A List Apart) place for inspiration, I love how tt takes my mind out of the flat screen mode and into the three dimensional world.

The next website that comes to mind is Tutorial9

The name says a lot, this website focuses a lot on Photoshop tutorials, web/browser tutorials and Photography tutorials. They are also a great resource for freebies and such! I think that a huge part of being inspired is feeling capable.  So, thats why I included a tutorial website.  Maybe you won’t use that crazy cartoon bunny that they taught you to make in your next website, but it allows you to hone your graphical skills and therefore inspires you to try new and different things!

Here are a few examples of featured content/resources on Tutorial9:

Resources!

Photoshop Tutorials!

Web Tutorials!

My final choice for inspiration is CSSloaf!

CSSloaf displays beautiful websites every day.  It is special because it draws content from 35 other websites that show beautiful websites, and mashes it all in to one site. brilliance. I love website sandwiches. You can view the entire list of websites in the sidebar on their homepage.

Sometimes, I just want to curb my design hunger with a MASSIVE amount of websites. I don’t want to search for them, I want them to come to me.. and CSSloaf does that.

Here are a few examples of the websites they’ve posted:

ecoki

dave brookes

MyBrandHQ

There you have it.  These are just a few of the places that I draw my inspiration from.  There is SO much on the web, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed by all of it. A good way to keep from being overloaded is to use an RSS reader to keep track of the sites that you’ve looked at.

The tool that I use and has been essential for me in keeping track of all of these great sites is Google Reader.  I used to try and memorize all of my favorite sites, and every day I’d go out look at each of them.  This became tiring as the number of sites that I visited grew.  sooooo much to remember!  Then I discovered Google Reader a couple of years ago, and I was blown away.  Google Reader keeps track of all of your favorite sites. All you need to do is go to the website and subscribe to their RSS feed. It will then give you the option to use Google Reader and away you go!!

Here is my Google Reader page.

If you are interested, feel free to follow me on Google Reader.  I have ALL of my favorite websites on there.

Also, if you have a favorite website that inspires you, I’d love you to post the URL in the comments section below. Have a great day!

<3

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