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Stop Inspiration Hunting When Designing
There is an interesting discussion happening in the forums that asks how are you standing out from the crowd? The origin of this question stems from the poster's browsing of the Gallery and noticing that sites are filled with the trends you see everyday.
As I look through the Gallery here (I clicked through about 80% of it), I start to see such common trends in the designs. Each one is unique, and most are beautiful, but still, the same underlying trends are noticeable. You have all the designers opening up with a line about themselves, you have the vintage looking sites, you have the clean web 2.0 look, and so on and so forth.
I'm sure most of us have started a design project by looking through galleries hoping to find some inspiration. For me this has always been a problem because when I did it in the past I found that my designs started to take the shape of the inspiration I was using. Instead of letting my design mold itself, it simply emulated the inspiration I was looking at. Now I tend to take a different approach in how I use inspiration.
Since I am always on the hunt for beautiful sites to include in the gallery I come across inspiration daily. However, instead of saving it so I can go back and look at it later for a project, I take notes on the aspects I like and how I might incorporate those elements into future designs. For example, I might like how a site uses a different background color for headings to give them more emphasis. Instead of forcing it in my next design, I save it in my notebook for a site in the future that might rely heavily on headlines.
When you start to look at inspiration in this fashion you will find that your creativity starts to take the concept even further. If you keep track of different ways content sites present links in their articles you might start to combine techniques into your own solution. When it comes to design inspiration you aren't looking to copy what is already out there, you are simply trying to stand on the shoulders of giants before you. You aren't looking to be original, you are looking to build upon concepts that already exist to help you solve problems.
Researching vs. Hunting
There is definitely a difference between looking at sites for research purposes when beginning a design versus looking at sites just to find some cool stuff you might be able to use. When thinking about the Gallery layout for Drawar I looked at as many galleries as I could find, not because I wanted to see what I could emulate, but because I wanted to see what I didn't like about them that I could improve. In this case I hated the fact that the screenshots were always small and often the page wasn't centered on the gallery. The page might have had a ton of other info surrounding the screenshots which distracted me from actually browsing. The problem I was facing was that I wanted to be able to tell if I liked a design or not from the smaller screenshot and when I clicked to look at the bigger screenshot it should be large enough to give me the details I am looking for.
If you compare the look of most design galleries you will notice that they are very similar. Do you think the designers behind them looked for inspiration and found how others handled the gallery problem and figured it was best to use the same design? I certainly think so and that is the problem when you go inspiration hunting, you take away your own ability to solve a problem and replace it with someone else's solution.
If you need to understand your client's competition then you should most definitely look at their sites. However, isn't there probably a better way to solve the problem than how the competition is doing it? That is what you are researching. If you are simply looking at the competition to copy it how are you helping your client?
If you are getting ready to design your portfolio site and come across Brian Hoff's, should you try to go with a large tagline or a quote? You could, but how does that solve the problem you are facing? If you aren't established yet, then how is that going to help you? Maybe you would be better served by simply showing your work immediately. The problems you are trying to solve usually aren't the same as someone else, so don't take their solution as a guide for creating your own.
Never stop looking for inspiration, however don't let the inspiration become your creativity.
This article was a bit different than what you usually see right? That is what Drawar is all about. It's not about being different, it's about helping all of us dig deeper into what web design really represents. It thrives off its members contributions so if you like what you see consider becoming a Plus Member or Drawar Friend.
17 Comments
Thanks for writing this Scrivs, I really appreciate you and the rest of the Drawar Community taking the time to respond to my questions; its helping me grow on a daily basis. I'm working to develop a creative process that I hope I can share with others when they are in the same spot as me.
You are right that inspiration shouldn't become creativity, and as you mentioned before, my new blog design isn't imitating any of the designs I have seen, but I have taken elements such as a font I enjoyed, a few colors, etc. that I've found around the web.
I look forward to seeing what everyone else has to contribute to this.
Thanks for another great article... The Drawar blog is quickly becoming one of the few worth reading anymore.
I appreciate the fact that you're trying to push forward in a world where originality seems to be flying out the window. Unfortunately for many, browsing galleries is turning more into "template fishing" rather then a bit of motivational inspiration, resulting in each site looking like a variation of the last.
Keep up the great work! Cheers
You have a point - when we're browsing other sites, we shouldn't blindly take elements and incorporate them into our designs, especially if they are out of place. However, I think the title of this article is a misnomer. Even what you describe doing (looking at sites and writing down things you like. Or don't like) is inspiration hunting. Anytime you're looking for something, purposefully or coincidentally, that you can use later for your work, it's inspiration hunting. And I think it's imperative. Ideas don't happen in a vacuum, as they say. I think the important thing to point out is that you should look for inspiration anywhere you can but then modify it to become your own thing. That way there's no question of plagiarism or mindless churning out of templates designs, and more of what we produce will have value.
Anyway, great stuff as always.
I agree as well. It seems a lot of the sites in CSS galleries and even on dribbble look so much alike it's hard to distinguish between them. It's equally hard when the client wants that set look. I had a client tell me they wanted a design that looked like carbonmade. Why would you ever want to pay for a design that looks like someone elses?
Hey there, I'm a pretty regular reader here on Drawar (oh, who am I kidding, I'm a daily reader..) but I've never commented. Just had to pipe up and express my gratitude for this post. I'm currently trying to redesign my own website and everytime I got "hunting" for inspiration I become overwhelmed with ideas and I end up just as undecided as when I started. I love the idea of just writing down things I like and coming back to them later. Thanks, Scrivs!
Something I wrote the other day seems aptly relevant (slightly altered):
Designers need to stop looking at images and start thinking about ideas.
AnonymousThanks for the great post. As designers, we need to be careful to only use other designs as inspiration, and not to duplicate. Think for yourself and, if you have to, incorporate bits and pieces of design elements that inspire you.
As designers, we need to be careful to only use other designs as inspiration, and not to duplicate.
There is nothing wrong with duplicating something if it works.
AnonymousI agree with WiBu; furthermore, I think that we will always see designs duplicated across the Web. Not necessarily because designers are directly copying from others, but because there are only so many options on the Web. Only so many ways to layout content, navigation, etc...
However, I do agree that designers should strive to be as original as possible.
But originality has already flown away. As a web designer, I have to create a site that fits the general web browsers expectations, or else they will leave. I have to think about demographics beyond the cool 18-24 age group that can navigate through any site and focus more on the cautious, hard-to-sell users. What about IE6 and 7? Can't use flash because it's not completely compatible.
So many of my clients are large companies that want a specific template and I've ended up recreating the same design but making it look "different" and "more fresh" to please uncreative tastes.
Just saying that inspiration hunting can be very valuable, to gauge what solutions do work the best. Maybe it will even lead to a new solution as well.
Thanks (again) for a great article! This speaks to something I'm struggling with right now and I appreciate the timely advice. I bookmark sites that contain design elements I want to consider/be inspired by, but I like your idea of writing it down better. It's too easy to get distracted by the rest of the design that may or may not be relevant to what I'm trying to communicate with my design.
I very much agree with this article. I'm still fairly new to the web design game (only a little more than a year under my belt), but as I've looked at the galleries I noticed the striking similarity in work. It seems like people stop searching for new and better answers and instead want to make it into the galleries.
As I started moving towards the web from my print background, I was often told to take a few designs from galleries as inspiration. Even to go as far as screenshotting and imitating websites. This seemed wrong on so many levels that I was quite bothered by it.
I've heard this kind of thing defended as a great way of training newer designers. My question is, by sending designers to the css galleries to create similar comps for people what are they being trained for?
They are being set up to be imitators of other peoples actions. Perhaps they are improving their abilities with design software, but little more. Meanwhile, their mind, their thought, their ideas, and the whole essence of what it is to design becomes completely useless and forgotten. A designer without a mind, without thought, without the desire to push forward and find new and better ideas is the kind of designer that is responsible for those designs so useless that we feel obligated to openly mock them.
Love it! High-five!
For a slightly different take on the same idea, I like to think of it as immersion instead of inspiration. Immersion (to me) is getting a lot of good examples of solutions to the problem I'm dealing with. That helps me get a much clearer picture of the problem and learning about new ways to solve it.
The important part of that is understanding the problem BEFORE you start looking for help.
That's the only way I've felt I could deal with inspiration without making it the bad guy... Inspiration is still good, but it shouldn't be where your creativity comes from.
I agree. We can't erase what we have already seen. Once you've experienced something, it will always influence you, whether consciously or unconsciously. We need to build on what has been done before and try to create something new and unique from that knowledge. "There are no original ideas. There are only original people." Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
AnonymousGreat article and I couldn't agree more. I liked the idea of taking notes of the different aspects that you like about the site. If I come across a site that I like, I examine the elements I like about it and instead of taking a screen shot of the whole site, I'll take a screen shot of the element I like. If it is the navigation I like, I save just the navigation element and so on.
I disagree. Firstly, I think your distinction between inspiration researching and idea hunting is largely arbitrary. We are all influenced by other works we've encountered in ways so complex that it's impossible to define where copying ends and originality begins. I think Picasso was partly acknowledging this when he said 'good artists copy, great artists steal'. Granted, it's never a good idea to copy stylistic elements from another work without understanding why they were used in the first place ('Cargo Cult design'). It's also important not to borrow too heavily from one source lest you court accusations of plagiarism. But I think that a little inspiration hunting can be quite healthy.
I dislike the emphasis on originality and 'standing out from the crowd' in this post. Like it or not, most of our clients and users aren't looking for an original website. Generally, clients just want a website that works well, looks reasonable, and conveys their branding/information successfully. Most users want something similar: a website that allows them to quickly and easily access the desired information. Sure, a striking and original design is nice, but it's much less important to the average user than being able to figure out at a glance how the navigation works. The advantage of common design trends (like having your logo at the top-left of the page, top-right navigation/search, etc.) is that they breed familiarity with users, so that they don't have to spend two minutes learning how to operate your website when they first arrive. Granted, this depends on the audience. A designer's portfolio website can stand to be a little more unusual and original because they are trying to demonstrate a point of difference to an audience who are likely to be more tech-savvy than the average. But the point is that the average mom'n'pop website owner doesn't care for all of your dynamic craziness and CSS3 razamatazz (even if I agree that it's pretty neat).
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Last sentence looked a little ironic.
Well, I agree with most of what you said, but sometimes it is hard to tell the line between hunting and researching and even harder to not cross it. Sometimes you stumble upon with beautifully working solution of problem which drove you crazy and suddenly realize that nobody else had ever used this before. Would it be "idea lending", or "researching" or just plain "ripping".
Action stays the same, but name changes it all.
There are so much about context, personal philosophic and even religious views that sometimes noticing something good could leave one in plain indecision. To "use" "gain inspiration" "make research" "rip" or not.
I hope you got what I wanted to say. Well, that might be topic for another article.