Understanding Inspirations
“Inspiration is everywhere.” You’ve heard it quoted at least once in your lifetime, but what do they actually mean by it? The “where do you get / find inspiration” question is the email I receive the most, which typically follows with the response of “everywhere.” On the other end I can hear the recipient saying “Yeah, yeah, yeah, typical” as they read my response. Instead of going into too much detail for each email, I’d thought it would make for a good blog post and general discussion. Here’s my attempt at defining and clarifying the “inspiration is everywhere” statement.
Understanding the quote “inspiration is everywhere” is quite straight forward. The world around us is full of inspiration stocked to the ceiling with stimulating colors, textures, shapes, curves, arrangements, contrasts, similarities… well you get the point. However, since we are bombarded with such beautiful inspiration each time we walk out our front doors, we often take it for granted and passes through our minds as a quick thought to later be forgotten when we need it. Many only seem to look for inspiration when onlythey need it.
The key to inspiration is being a good recorder. Technology makes this very simple with camera phones, pocket-sized sketchbooks, iPads and amongst other things. Instead of inspirational occurrences becoming another passing moment, take a picture; it lasts longer. Make a record of everything that inspires or catches your eye and revisit these things when you start a new project.
For example: the grid for your website layout can be inspired by the balanced, yet unorthodox, arrangement of windows on old piece of architecture creating a unique layout for the blog section of your new site.
Also, having recently redesigned this blog, I can relate to playing the role of a “recorder.” The color palette was inspired by a book cover I came across while browsing a bookstore in Princeton, New Jersey, while the cross-hatching—acting as shading running along the sides— was inspired by my neighbors old little white fence that is half hanging over into my side (the way the fencing weaved and intertwined). The subtle grey texture was inspired by a newspaper-eske feel to put focus back on my content and purpose of this site: to read. A majority of what inspired this redesign was drawn by offline inspiration.
Inspiring Illustrators
Persson is an illustrator based in Stockholm, Sweden. She has created art work for world known organisations such as 'Coca-Cola', 'Vogue', 'Absolut Vodka' and 'Sony Music'.
I have always been a fan of her work. I particularly like the organic-ness of her watercolour pieces. In my final design, I hope to achieve this type of element.
Dmitriy Rebus Larin
Dmitriy is a painter and illustrator based in Moscow. His work includes spectacular watercolour illustrations which is very similar to the type of typical art work I love by Persson.
Krasnauskas works as a digital artist freelance in Southern France. Her work is not as commercialised as the above are, but her work of digital painting is very inspiring from a illustrators point of view.
