Notes Designinspiration
10 Futuristic User Interfaces
Posted August 18th, 2008 by notesdesignGood user interfaces are crucial for good user experience. It doesn't matter how good a technology is — if we, designers, don't manage to make user interface as intuitive and attractive as possible, the technology will hardly reach a breakthrough. To gain the interest in a new product or technology, users need to understand its advantages or find themselves impressed or involved.
Technorati Tags: 10 Awesome, Contemporary Character Designs
Posted August 14th, 2008 by notesdesignCharacters live amongst us — in graffiti, as vinyl dolls, as commercial identity icons and almost everywhere. A character communicates content without actually saying a word. We can see the use of characters in advertising, consumerism and in contemporary art growing more and more important and diverse.
10 Beautiful Things For A Beautiful Life
Posted August 10th, 2008 by notesdesignWith this post we start to publish finalists of our guest author contest. Over three weeks 12 winning articles will be published — selected top-10-lists and discussion articles. To rate the articles we'll analyze popularity, users activity, quality of backlinks, traffic etc. You can follow our updates on Twitter — feel free to share your comments, suggestions and remarks.
Design Showcase Of Creative Online-Shops
Posted August 6th, 2008 by notesdesignTimes when online-shops were boring and unattractive are over. To attract customers' attention designers tend to design online-shops according to the atmosphere it has to create. An online-store in which retro-products are offered is designed in a retro-look. And shops which are aiming to attract young customers are designed in vibrant colors and modern style. Furthermore, interactive browsing through the store, implemented with Flash and JavaScript, gains on popularity as well.
Pop Art Is Alive: Classics and Modern Artworks
Posted July 21st, 2008 by notesdesignAs a visual art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s, pop art aims to emphasize the nature of things popular in our daily routine. In the pop art most artists used mechanical means of rendering techniques that downplay the expressive hand of the artist. Being an art movement, it has some expressive attributes other styles do not possess.
Let There Be Light: Light Paintings and Sculptures
Posted July 14th, 2008 by notesdesignAlthough light is considered to be rather a practical than an artistic tool, it has some properties which designers can effectively explore in their works. Indeed, light can also be considered as a medium for more powerful and more vivid artistic expression. In fact, many artists and crews make use of it creating quite impressive works of art.
Table of Contents: Creative Examples
Posted July 7th, 2008 by notesdesignTable of contents is often considered to be one of the most unspectacular design elements ever invented. Because of its simple, usual form, table of contents is often not given the attention it may deserve — after all, it is just a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear. But why not use exactly that and surprise the reader of a booklet, brochure, annual report or a book with some beautiful and original table of contents? In fact, many creative approaches are possible. And this post attempts to prove exactly that.
Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: July 2008
Posted June 30th, 2008 by notesdesignDesktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That's why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months.
And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we've decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn't it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?
Style Switchers Contest Results
Posted June 25th, 2008 by notesdesignThree weeks ago we have announced the Style Switchers Design Contest where we've presented some ideas for style switchers design and encouraged our readers to create a style switcher for their own web-sites. One of the participants was to be awarded with an Apple Cinema 20 Flat Panel Display. Over 60 designers participated and — as in all of our earlier contests — the results are indeed pretty smashing.
Favicon Episode 7
Posted June 24th, 2008 by notesdesignEvery now and again we showcase beautiful favicons — tiny pieces of art you’ll usually find in your browser's address bar or when searching through your bookmarks. Favicons are important as they provide visual indicators to visitors and help them to easily associate the content with a bookmark in their browser. Besides, favicons are just nice to look at and there are way too many sites which don't make use of them. We like to change things. Which is why here is the 7th episode of the favicons series.
Creative Calendar Designs
Posted June 23rd, 2008 by notesdesignHow many creative solutions for calendar design are out there? If you take a look around you'll find out that most calendars are designed in a "standard" linear fashion. Calendar cards usually have the same structure: the month is designed in bold while the days are placed below within a rigid grid structure. Well, it doesn't have to be like this. In fact, there are a number of creative approaches one can consider when designing calendars.
Hand-Drawing Style In Modern Web Design - Volume 2
Posted June 18th, 2008 by notesdesignWhen it comes to web design too often perfect, colorful and boxy designs make the cut; however, the reality is different as it is hard to find objects with a perfect shape and a perfect color in our daily routine. To achieve a unique and communicative design we need to consider more creative approaches. For instance, we can draw sites by ourselves — or at least some parts of it.
Beautiful Brochures and Booklets
Posted June 16th, 2008 by notesdesignIn corporate design brochures and booklets are a standard tool for promotion and advertising. They are tiny books or magazines which lay around in conference halls, offices and waiting rooms. Sometimes they contain an annual report of the company or showcase the portfolio of an artist. Brochures can also be included in CDs and DVDs; however, usually they are given away as freebies (e.g. they may contain a calendar or some poster inside).
Beautiful Black and White Photography
Posted June 9th, 2008 by notesdesignIf you've been following Smashing Magazine for a while, you know that almost all posts from the Monday Inspiration series are pretty colorful and eye-catching. This post is an exception. Compared to colorful designs where catchy colors help the design to stand out, in black-and-white designs the ability to stand out depends only on its ability to communicate rather than on its appealing visual presentation.
10 Places For Design Inspiration
Posted June 3rd, 2008 by notesdesignWhen Leonardo Da Vinci attempted to build the world’s first robot in 1495, his inspiration had come from the ancient Greek texts of Ctesibus and Vitruvius. Likewise, Auguste Rodin cited Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise” as the inspiration for his famous sculpture “The Gates of Hell”. Designers and artists have traveled the world for centuries looking for those brilliant moments of inspiration.
Beautiful and Expressive Packaging Design
Posted June 2nd, 2008 by notesdesignPackaging design has the primary goal to attract customers' attention. For this purpose, package designs can not simply inform the customers, but also provoke feelings and communicate emotions. An effective packaging looks attractive, impresses with its creativity and is just nice to have on the shelf.
Beautiful And Original Product Designs
Posted May 26th, 2008 by notesdesignSuccessful product design manages to reveal useful functionality beyond its appealing form. No matter how excellent a design looks like, most customers aren't likely to spend money on something they won't be able to use. On the other hand, most people are likely to buy something useful despite the design it has.
Handcraft Strikes Back: Buttons, Badges, Pins and Clips
Posted May 19th, 2008 by notesdesignButtons, badges and pins stand for a medium which is often underestimated and not taken seriously. That's a pity, because designed properly, badges and buttons can effectively communicate ideas to your potential customers and impress them with something creative and beautiful.
Sexy, Bold And Experimental Typography
Posted May 12th, 2008 by notesdesignSometimes typography is all you need to communicate your ideas effectively. Graphics can support the type or type can support the graphics, but to deliver the message precisely, you need to make sure your type is expressive enough, your design is distinctive enough and the composition is strong enough. The results are sometimes crazy, sometimes artsy, sometimes beautiful, but often just different from things we're used to. Thus designers explore new horizons and we explore new viewing perspectives which is what inspiration is all about.
Where Do You Draw Inspiration From?
Posted May 11th, 2008 by notesdesignGetting creative is part of our job. Whatever project we are working on, at some point we need to come up with some nice starting point — some fresh idea which we could explore further, build upon and refine until we have a polished, perfect result. Although having an idea is at least as important as implementing it properly, without inspiration and innovation you just can't get anything done.
