Thread

I’m helping a friend look for some design inspiration.

I use to have a good site that showed all sorts of really nice layouts of other websites. Kind of a design showcase of the web. not their work. I use to use this site for inspiration a lot when trying to come up with stuff for clients.

I haven’t used it in awhile but thought I’d ask if anyone had suggestions. My business partner is looking for some inspiration and I can’t remember the site i use to use, or any other really good ones.

Can someone help a google challenged person?

You could try Pattern Tap or Smashing Magazine if you go through their archives they usually have quite a few site designs in there. Also all the different CSS galleries such as Nice Stylesheet, Unmatched Style and CSS Mania to name a couple. There are loads loads more though so just do a quick Google search for CSS galleries and loads will come up.

Hope that helps a bit though.

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi Jt, you are welcome to share my design journal blog from the past year or so, I’ve sort of stopped posting these, but still wish I had a place to blog what impresses just me.
http://www.mostinspired.com/blog/category/weekly-top-standards/
I usually pick them right off of CSSmania.com and another great and selective gallery is http://bestwebgallery.com/. You can’t beat smashing MAgazine either, but you sometimes have to use a keyword search for a certain style or resource.
It’s a lot of fun posting a journal.

Thanks Mark and Crssp-ee.

This is exactly what I wanted. I especially like the way they have those small thumbnails but bigger previews on mouseover on that bestwebgallery site.

Thanks again guys! i sure wish I was creative enough to think of those things.

What I have recently started doing is keeping snapshots of designs or fragments of designs in LittleSnapper - (Mac only). I also keep a record of any client updates I do with this as well but I have an inspirations category that whenever I see something I like I take a grab of it.

Some recent good places I have been trawling to find inspiration include, in no particular order:

Fresh Web Trends
CSS Imagine
ScrnShots
CSS Dance
CSS Blaze
CSS Mix

Also all the different CSS galleries such as Nice Stylesheet, Unmatched Style and CSS Mania to name a couple.

You mean a few right?

Also all the different CSS galleries such as Nice Stylesheet, Unmatched Style and CSS Mania to name a couple.

You mean a few right?

You picking on my pluralisms? 😉

To be fair I did have a comma after Nice Stylesheet and then Unmatched Style and CSS Mania were grouped together so that makes a couple!! 😊 😉 😊

Maybe Steven is alluding to the fact that there are a lot more sites out there than has been mentioned…

thanks again for these replies.

To Simon. I think we all know there are probably thousands of these sites out there. That’s actually the main reason I asked here. With most people here being developers I’m able to weed out probably 95% of the sites that just recycle stuff, have hidden agendas or are just pointless. Most responses from this board on stuff like that provide highly qualified results.

Maybe Steven is alluding to the fact that there are a lot more sites out there than has been mentioned…

Nah he was picking on me for my bad use of grammar 😉

and thanks for the reminder of Smashing Magazine Mark - forgotten about that - just read their article of 50 more 404 pages - always an interesting but often neglected subject!

and thanks for the reminder of Smashing Magazine Mark - forgotten about that - just read their article of 50 more 404 pages - always an interesting but often neglected subject!

Yep I read that a couple of days back now and it’s a really good idea. Must remember to do that more often myself from now on! 😊

What I started doing for inspiration, especially for websites, is to not look at anything that is a website. I found that when I use websites as inspiration for websites, my design starts looking like that website.

I started heading down to the local Barnes & Nobles and sift through the art section and look at books on business cards, brochures, and even architecture. Then, once I have a good idea for a design, I then look at the CSS gallery sites for functionality. I will look at how the navigation changes, drop-downs, etc.

I feel that I get better results this way, and I think my designs are more unique this way.

You could try Pattern Tap or Smashing Magazine if you go through their archives they usually have quite a few site designs in there. Also all the different CSS galleries such as Nice Stylesheet, Unmatched Style and CSS Mania to name a couple. There are loads loads more though so just do a quick Google search for CSS galleries and loads will come up.

Hope that helps a bit though.

Best wishes,

Mark

Yeah, I hear that Nice Stylesheet site is the BOMB!  :cheese: 

Thanks for mentioning Mark. 😉

What I started doing for inspiration, especially for websites, is to not look at anything that is a website. I found that when I use websites as inspiration for websites, my design starts looking like that website.

I started heading down to the local Barnes & Nobles and sift through the art section and look at books on business cards, brochures, and even architecture. Then, once I have a good idea for a design, I then look at the CSS gallery sites for functionality. I will look at how the navigation changes, drop-downs, etc.

I feel that I get better results this way, and I think my designs are more unique this way.

I agree with that approach. I do the same myself—draw inspiration from non-web sources.