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Sources of Creative Inspiration

kelly stewart pic - creative inspiration - nashville web services

If you are a living human being, then you probably feel the need for some creative inspiration -- at least occasionally. As writers and website services professionals, we often find ourselves in need of a good jolt (in addition to caffeine) to open our minds and get some ideas flowing.

Sometimes the type of inspiration needed is related to graphics and imagery, and at other times -- more often for us -- we are looking for writing-related inspiration, or something to get us thinking outside the box for keyword research on a search engine optimization (SEO) project. But no matter what specific brand of creativity we are craving at the time, we can always get those creative juices flowing when we visit one or more of the sites listed here. We hope this helps you, too.

Brainstorming sessions are great, but just because a brainstorming session is declared does not mean that new ideas will result. The next time you are going to call the staff together for a brainstorming session, send them these links a few minutes (at least) in advance and then get ready for some interesting ideas.

Smashing Magazine -- My favorite resource for creative inspiration Excerpt: Founded in September 2006, Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers. Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest trends and techniques in Web development. We try to convince you not with the quantity but with the quality of the information we present. We hope that makes us different. Smashing Magazine is, and always has been, independent...Perhaps the most remarkable yet overlooked aspect of the design community is its friendly, enthusiastic spirit. Every day, literally thousands of talented, hard-working folks out there gain new insight from their work, come up with brilliant ideas and then share their experience with fellows designers...

Deviant Art -- interesting source of art-related, visual creative inspiration

Digg -- Excerpt: Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online...How do we do this? Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by our community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see.

Digg is a great resource for creative inspiration because it is, in a sense, a list of some of the most interesting destinations available online at any given time. Everything you see on Digg has been voted on by many different individials. Furthermore, you can use Digg as you would a search engine. For instance, searching for Diggs related to "creative inspiration" can lead to all sorts of places to get your creative juices flowing.

Creative Inspiration: Graphic Design

40 Top Creative Design Resources that Inspire Professional Graphic Designers -- Inspiration can be critical to overcoming a creative design block, or just keeping the air in your creative sails. Finding and routinely following creative design resources is a great way to stay on top of trends, spark ideas, and simply appreciate the great works that inspire professional graphic designers...
DesignSlurp -- DesignSlurp is an aggregator of all things design-related, from the fine folks at Studio 7

More Resources for Creative Inspiration

Ten of the Greatest Web Sources for Creative Inspiration

110+ Resources For Creative Minds -- Tips, tutorials, exercises and inspiration from the fields of visual art, writing, photography, blogging, design and invention. Next time you’re stuck for ideas or inspiration I hope you’ll find something here to get your right brain firing. A tip: sometimes the best sources of inspiration often lie far outside your own creative field...

Skelliewag -- Skelliewag is a blog about planning, creating and growing the online projects you’re obsessed with. If you have big ideas that keep you awake at night (in a good way), this is written for you.

Fuel Your Creativity -- Excerpt: Most people find that true creativity isn’t a constant presence in their lives, no matter how much you fool yourself into thinking that. We’d like to introduce you to Fuel Your Creativity. This gem is the place to turn to when you’re having one of your “I’m-going-to- implode-if-I- don’t-get-an- idea-soon” moments. Don’t lie. You know you have them...Check us out when you need some inspiration. We have some pretty cool articles and even cooler links to various sites that will keep you informed on how other creatives like yourself get things done. There are even interviews with said creatives that give you a glimpse into their world. There are some cool worlds out there...

I Love Typography -- great site about all things type
Burst of Beaden -- illustration
Fully Illustrated -- design, illustration
Cork Dump -- customizable list of design resources
GDC -- Society of Graphic Designers of Canada
Freelance Switch -- freelancer advice, resources
Logopond -- collection of logos, corporate identity
Desktopography -- desktop wallpapers
Computer Arts -- graphic design magazine
50+ Promising Collection Of Resources And Inspirations For Designers To Discover The Best Of The Web In April

Creative Inspiration: Graphic Design Blogs

Six Revisions -- Excerpt: Six Revisions is a weblog that provides practical, useful information for the modern, standards-compliant web designer and web developer. It seeks to present exceptional, noteworthy tips, tutorials, and resources that the modern web professional will appreciate. You’ll find a variety of content from tools that can speed up your workflow processes to showcases of beautiful designs for inspiration and tutorials on JavaScript frameworks like jQuery and MooTools...Why do you write about BOTH design and development stuff? The role of the modern web professional is ever-expanding. We can see web developers tasked with having to design a user interface to present to clients and web designers picking up jQuery and a bit of server-side code to expand their abilities. Even if you’re one or the other, it serves you well to know both sides of the coin.

1stwebdesigner -- 1stwebdesigner is a design blog dedicated to bloggers, freelancers, web-developers and designers. Topics focus on web design,graphic design, tutorials and inspirational articles.

Veerle’s Blog -- a frequently updated design blog
Design in Europe -- a european design blog
Design you Trust -- a unique nerdy blog
David Hellmann -- a German design blog
Bittbox -- a graphic design blog
Freelance Switch -- a blog about freelance graphic design advice
You the Designer -- a design blog full of resources
Fazai 38 -- a popular design blog
Inspired Magazine

Creative Inspiration: Photography

43 Of The Extremely Creative Wonders Of Macro Photography

Other Categories of Web Resources

Free Font Downloads

Web Page Publicity -- free fonts and other resources
Da Font -- huge collection of free fonts
Urban Fonts -- nice selection of free fonts
Simply The Best Fonts -- fonts and other freebies
1001 Free Fonts -- 1001 free fonts for download
Creamundo -- over 9000 free fonts
Best Free Fonts -- a small list of free fonts

Paid Font Sites

My Fonts -- a large selection of fonts for purchase
Veer -- quality fonts for purchase
Fonts -- information and fonts for purchase
Font Haus -- font resources and sales

Stock Photos and Vectors

iStockphoto -- a great stock photo and vector website
Shutterstock -- quality photos for purchase
Veer -- stock photos and other pay downloads
Vector Stock -- quality, affordable vectors for purchase
Jupiter Images -- stock photos with a great selection
Stock Vault -- stock photos and photography network
Corbis -- quality stock photos

Free Photos and Vectors

Open Source Vector Art -- submit vectors, download others for free
Deviant Art -- tons of great free vectors and photos
Free Vectors -- 59 pages of free vector art
Vecteezy -- large gallery of free vectors
Vector 4 Free -- quality vector downloads
Free Stock Photos -- neat collection of free photos from around the world
You The Designer -- great collection of free vectors and resources
Free Foto -- great free stock photos
Bittbox -- a list of free downloads
Free Picture Click -- 700 free stock photos
Free BG -- free background patterns for photoshop
Squidfingers -- over 150 free background patterns

Website Templates

Evan Eckard -- a few high quality wordpress themes
OSWD -- over 2,000 free web templates
Open Source Templates -- a small selection of nice templates
Free CSS Templates -- a large list of free templates
Free CSS Templates -- nice wordpress templates for download
Free Templates Online -- a combination of free and pay templates
Templamatic -- affordable, quality templates
Blogging Themes -- free blog templates

CSS Galleries

CSS Remix -- the best sites on the web
CSS Mania -- a frequently updated gallery of sites
Most Inspired -- an organized list of nice sites
CSS Design Yorkshire -- css gallery of quality sites
CSS Nature -- a selection of only nature based sites
Web Creme -- a selective list of well designed sites
CSS Tux -- high quality css showcase
The Designed Tree -- nice css websites
CSS Elite -- a css collection organized by category

Colour Palettes

A Flash Site of User Generated Colour Palettes: Adobe Kuler
Using Colours From Photos: Colr
Colours, Palettes and Patterns: COLOURlovers
A Colour Palette Generated From Your Images: Color Palette Generator
See The Results of Your Palette on a Website: Color Spire
Create and Email Colour Palettes: Color Blender

Tips and Tricks

Vector Do’s and Dont’s: iStockphoto
The Web Design Polish: PSD Tuts
Promote Your Design Business: Freelance Switch
How To Increase Web Traffic: You The Designer

Designer Geek Merchandise

Great Nerdy Clothing and Accessories: Veer
Nice T-Shirt Collection: Design Loot
Graphic Design T-Shirts and Accessories: Cafepress
Geek Merchandise For Everyone: Think Geek
Graphic Design T-Shirts: Zazzle
Unique T-Shirt Designs You Can’t Find Anywhere Else: Allmightys

Newly added resources

A great new marketplace for stock graphic design: Inkd.com
A fantastic resource for finding information on corporate brand identity: Brands of the World

Discovering Your Purpose

Talk about a worthwhile topic...this definitely qualifies. Sometimes you may feel as though following links, or surfing the web, is a waste of time - and sometimes you'd be right; however, you can set that concern aside as you peruse these links about discovering your purpose.

How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes
The Meaning of Life: Discover Your Purpose
Life on Purpose: 15 Questions to Discover Your Personal Mission
What Should I Do with My Life? -- The One Question is about finding your purpose. It's about finding what you love to do the most, living with passion, searching for what gives your life meaning. It's about being in tune with who you really are and living a life of purpose. Having a purpose in your life is almost like a spiritual experience. The One Question helps you find the The Meaning of Life, and answer to the one question we all need an answer for: what should we do with our lives?
Why You Must Discover Your Purpose -- You belong somewhere; there’s something that you can do better than anyone else. There is a problem that you were created to solve, a problem that you will love solving. Even if you’re not certain what your purpose is, begin to move in the direction of activities that you enjoy, eventually you will get clarity on your true purpose, if you stay in action.
Life Purpose -- This page contains dozens of links to articles that cover topics like: How To Ask More Powerful Questions, The Law of Attraction, Live Your Best Life, What Else Is There, Wealth Beyond Reason, How To Get UN-Stuck, Power of Conscious Intention, Have No Doubt, A Case for Life Purpose, Silencing the Critic Within, Thoughts Matter: Finding Happiness Through Improving Our Thinking, Attitude: Get Off Your Assets, 5 Steps to Purpose: Facing Limiting Fears, 10 Guidelines to Enlightenment, Letting Go Of The Past, and so on.
Purpose - How to Discover Your Purpose

Personal Development

Personal Development for Smart People

Think Simple Now -- Think Simple Now (TSN) is a candidly written blog that addresses real-life personal issues on our path to happiness and fulfillment, along with practical and simple solutions for those issues...Our mission at Think Simple Now is to empower people to find inner clarity and personal happiness through simple, uplifting, motivational, and applicable articles.

PickTheBrain.com Welcome to PickTheBrain.com, a website dedicated to self improvement with a focus on personal productivity, motivation, and self education. PickTheBrain diverges from traditional “self-help” by taking a broader approach. Rather than sticking to a small set of topics, the site covers anything related to self improvement. Any information that people can use to live more prosperous, satisfying lives is a potential article.

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