Designspiration

Hey ya'll! Recently I've gotten a few emails from a few girls asking what's my inspiration process for designing a blog design. First I'm going to start by telling you guys that I'm in no way a professional graphic designer, HTML guru, or even someone who has an eye for good design. I've been blog designing for a little over 5 months now and in no way consider myself a "blog designer". I grab all of my inspiration from fellow designers and visually attractive packaging, products and designs. I spend hours upon hours searching Pinterest, read through/ cut up magazines, as well as snap photos of anything and everything that catches my creative eye.

Some things I consider when looking for inspiration are: color schemes, shapes, lettering and branding techniques. For example, right now frickin triangles are all the rage. I don't know what it is but everyone and their momma is raving about triangles when it comes to design elements. I can't blame them. They're clean, look great and can be morphed into various things such as mountains and arrows.

Once I've gathered ton of inspiration, I create "mood boards". If you've hired me to do a blog design for you, you'll know what I'm talking about. An example would be the mood board above. Mood boards help me visualize the colors and design variations all together in one collage. You can tell right off the bat if the colors don't mesh. I usually use black and white with one bright color or a variation of neutral pastels with my designs. Once I've confirmed a mood board, I save it for reference. I give them all a fancy name and save them in a Mood board folder on my desktop.

The hardest part about design for me is learning how to not be too inspired by one artist. It's ideal when being creative to have a wide range of artists you look up to because you may fall into the sneaky trap of copying and not creating. Easiest way to avoid it is to branch out. Be inspired by multiple things whether its design, paintings, business branding, or even music.

3 tips for designers:

- Gather resourceful inspiration. (And no, that doesn't mean just Pinterest)
- Continue creating even when you're not getting paid to do it.
- Grow your eye for what looks good. It doesn't always just come naturally. Play around with colors and shapes. Process of elimination will get you far.