As a designer I some times find it hard to sit down and just design. There are days that I sit down and designs are just flowing and then there are the days that I have what I fear the most "designers block". Being a freelancer it can be a little easier to just pack up for the day and take a few hours to find your groove again. When working a typical 9-5 corporate job can be hard to head out to the park, book store, or favorite coffee shop.
I tend to turn my chair and look over at my small library of books that I have on my desk. I have a whole collection of Web Design: ... Books. The Icons series of design books is a great to pull from even though the subject you are designing for is not the subject matter of the book. This series includes.
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Now keep in mind those are just the web design series. There are hundreds more ranging from Hot Rods and Custom Cars to Fashion and even Tiki Style.
I would also recommend looking at
The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide To Themes, Trends & Styles In Web site Design by McNeil
While you are in the book store you might want to venture over to the Magazine rack where you will find a few good resources as well. I honestly do not keep up with magazines and If you have any suggestions of what great magazines you read please leave a suggestion in the comments.
Another great way to find inspiration is by surfing the web.
One of my favorite tools for FireFox is the stumble upon plugin(link) you can select in the settings a whole range of keywords you can view sites of.
Template sites such as templateworld.com or templatemonster.com can give help give ideas on navigation page layouts or even color schemes.
I also find myself opening up my RSS feeder and having a look at what is new there for the day before I even get started designing. Here are a few of my favorites.
Web Resources Depot
Smashing Magazine
Digg.com/Design
The Design Inspiration
Fuel Your Creativity
There are lots more where those came from. If you are interested in seeing what else I read shoot me a comment and I will gladly send you my RSS list.
How are you inspired?
