Two tips for design inspiration
January 5, 2008 – 6:59 pm
- Keep it simple
- Steal
Keep your designs simple
OK! This is easier said than done but this is paramount. If you want to live a happy life, keep it as simple as possible. If you want to do a good design… you get the picture!
Take this photograph of 60s fashion model Twiggy by Barry Lategan, for example. He didn’t really do much but take a very simple picture, simple make-up, simple lighting… and yet we all remember it.
If you something isn’t working and you want to improve it then take things away don’t add any more mess.
I created the Twiggy outline by importing the photo into Illustrator and using the Live Trace feature.
Steal your designs
Doesn’t sound very ethical does it? But it is what everybody else does.
Take this beautiful website from Japanese artist Marumiyan, for example. I don’t know anything about him but look at his stuff! Excellent, and it really inspired me.
The background for the above picture came from Veerle Pieters who wrote a tutorial on how to create a Mac OS X type desktop background. I’ve got a lot of good stuff from her in the past. One of the best sites I know about how to do things in Illustrator and Photoshop (HTML and CSS, too). (A PageRank of 8! OMG, I’ve got a long way to go!)
I’ll give it a try now.
7 Responses to “Two tips for design inspiration”
cool tips mate..wow…continue this good work…
By Motivator on Jan 6, 2008
Cheers, Motivator, always good to get a “wow”!
By Rob Cubbon on Jan 7, 2008
Rob,
While I wholeheartedly agree with you on the first tip (keep it simple), I’m hesitant to go along with the always shocking “Steal It” idealogy.
Especially when you don’t give much description to what you mean when you say steal it. You gave me some examples of inspirational work. But being inspired is very different from stealing. Please explain!
I don’t mean to be rude, I just want some more! Thanks.
By Trylon Tower Expert on Jan 10, 2008
To me stealing and inspiration are the same thing as it is entirely arbitrary where you put the dividing line between the two. I’ve downloaded a couple of images to show you where the inspiration/theft has occurred.
The first is for the background.
The second is from the Marumiyan website.
So you can see where I came up with the simple image of a woman’s face. I will definitely do more of this simple black and white imagery with simple colours and blends in the future.
More cynicism here! http://robcubbon.com/what-is-good-design/
Not rude at all Trylon Tower Expert! Hope this helps!
Rob
By Rob Cubbon on Jan 13, 2008
To me stealing would have been you taking all or an element of that photo and putting it on the Mac background.
Your work was instead inspired by the 2 photos but not necessarily taken directly from the other works of art.
I’m into music and so I here pieces that inspire me to make something similar to it. I haven’t stolen it, rather I’ve made my own version. Once I get started, my action creates further inspiration. This inspiration then pushes my work into my own.
Does that make sense?
I see your point about how inspiration can be stealing.
Thanks for the clarification!
By Trylon Tower Expert on Jan 15, 2008
No problem, Trylon Tower Expert, do come again!
By Rob Cubbon on Jan 19, 2008
Excellent tips, you give great picture examples that help a lot. Thank you.
By Bodybuilding Blog on Feb 2, 2008