Instant inspiration
If you are a person not living under a rock and actually put to use the internet beyond Facebook and Gmail, you will undoubtedly have come across a few sites or apps that made you stop and just wonder at just how pretty it looks. If you have too much time on your hand, or are bored with that engineering degree maybe you even decided to learn how to design – be it web pages, logos or motion graphics.
Initially the work is daunting, and at time might make you wonder why you ever stopped using Microsoft Paint and Windows Movie Maker and switched to these fancy software with fancy terms that do not make any sense.
But say you are past that stage, Adobe is now the puppet to the strings that you hold, and you can make it dance, sing and woo a girl. But what do you make? Inspiration is hard to come by, and even the muses tend to be lazy in a country like ours. Of course you can sit under a blanket, crank up the Beethoven and hope that inspiration strikes. Or you can just head on over to these sites – see what people are making, get ideas and put them to use. Remember that line about stealing and art and cubes and whatnot?
By far my favourite site in this list, Behance is owned by Adobe and is a site where designers from around the globe show their work – completed and the ones in progress. It's a great site for showcasing your portfolio, getting feedback, and of course, for the design padawan, for being inspired.
At Behance you can search according to different filter, the most useful of which is the Tools Used. Not only do you see the great work that people are doing, at times you will be baffled by what has been done, which hopefully might get you to think about how to go about it and – voila! You can also filter in terms of creative fields from architecture to web design.
"Our mission is to discover, recognize, and promote the talent and effort of web designers, developers, and agencies who create unique digital experiences that are useful, innovative, intuitive, and beautiful," reads the about us section of the website. True to their words, awwwards.com is a gem for the web designer.
Sites are getting prettier by the day, not only in terms of looks – innovative ways of interaction with the user are also cropping up. What Awwwards does it bring to you an already curated list of sites so you don't have to go searching for them in nooks and crannies. That next webpage you want to design for that hotshot client? – well take a look at this before starting.
This one is more for those working with motion graphics. Whether you love or hate James Bond, admit it, you loved the elaborate opening sequences. Opening titles of shows and movies are now a form of art in themselves – just think of Hannibal or Daredevil.
Art of the Title is a collection of articles, with lots and lots of pictures and videos devoted to this art form. Even if you don't need fancy titles, beautiful imagery never fails to inspire.
Abduzeedo describes itself as a collection of visual inspiration and useful tutorials. From works of architecture, illustration, logos, photography and even typography to Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials, this is a site one can get addicted to browsing.
This list would not be complete without DeviantArt. The budding digital artists playground, deviantart.com has a lot to offer. It has work by artists sorted into categories like Digital Art, Photography, Design & Interfaces. DeviantArt is not solely dedicated to digital art, but then again, who says you need only that to be inspired?
Honourable mentions: This list is too short to do justice to the massive amount of cool and beautiful work that is available on the internet. Brainpickings, with its collection of cultural and artistic musings, is a useful site to browse when one wants to be productive but don't want to work. Trapcode is another site I personally found really useful. Though it is primarily a technology R&D company, their sharelog section has great work and tutorials on graphics design up on display. Another site similar to Behance, is The Inspiration Grid, sorted into neat categories, and with a clean design.
There's a lot more on the internet that can inspire. And you don't need to be a designer to appreciate something beautiful. It soothes, inspires and motivates. It might even prompt you to take up a productive hobby and thus add a new item on your CV beyond "proficient in Microsoft Word."
The writer is an online journalist at The Daily Star and a junior at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka