design ideas

[Doug Bernhardt]

Hi again all......just today I found a message in my message box from a fellow head who asked...
"
I have to ask you where your design ideas come from, where do you look for inspiration? "

and thought this was a good question to share, especially as this isn't the first time I've been asked. It was quite a number of years ago that I saw a letter/article from Mark Oatis as he was asked a similar thing and replied that his "morgue" was his greatest asset. I second that. I took Marks advice to heart and started collecting "inspiration" books about 1986. It started with Strongs and Atkinson and now has dover books, fine woodworking magasines as well a half dozen books of pub photos and anything else that strikes my fancy. Architecture etc etc. These books are everything to me and whenever I start a design I pick up one or more of these and thumb my way through. Although I can't remember for the life of me which ones I might use at anyime and the finished design rarely looks like the art I started out to rip-off, the inspiration always creeps in. Although I subscribe to most of them, and with the exception of Letterheads Magasine,one of the things I never do is look at sign magasines for inspiration. A quick peek at the pub photo's Mike so kindly posted for me below, and it's obvious that this is where I get "inspiration" or better, what I rip-off. It was my intention to share (the pub photos)with everyone, what really turns me on.
So enuf about me, "what gets you going" that isn't necessarily sign oriented? Love to hear!

[Raymond Chapman]

I just copy Mike Jackson and Gary Anderson.

[Kelly Thorson]

For me there is inspiration in everything around me. There are times I wish I could see something for what it is, rather than imagining what I could do with it. The exception to this seems to be Nature. I can appreciate Nature just the way it is. I still do get a lot of inspiration from a quiet walk in the country though. It seems to impact my color choices a lot. I'm very much an earthy / neutral colours person.

I have a morgue too, it includes a filing cabinet of old calenders, magazine clippings, photographs, pencil sketches as well as numerous art and lettering books, sign magazines, etc.

Although I love my books, especially the old ones, I'm finding that most of my inspiration is now coming from Google. I have numerous albums of all types of images, antique silverware, old door hardware, old architecture (sorted into Edwardian, Georgian, Art Nouveau etc.), wallpapers, fabrics, decorative fonts, old stocks and bonds, period illustrations, old tobacco ads and cards.....

Often when I'm having trouble sleeping I'll Google something or I'll watch a slide show of some of my existing albums. In the wee hours of the morning my mind seems to easily slide into that creative mode and ideas fly. I'm sure I forget 90% of those ideas, but I have way more left than I can ever hope to accomplish in this lifetime.

I would be amiss if I didn't confess that a very large amount of my inspiration comes from "Letterheads". I have bookmarked a number of home pages and if I am stuck on a concept I'll go for a little tour and it never takes long to see something that tweaks my imagination. I don't have to worry too much about plagiarism, as things don't usually even look like I had imagined by the time I'm done. For me the creation of something is a journey with many unexpected twists and turns. I never did follow maps too well.