Posted by on Sep 9, 2011 in Inspiration, My Business Adventures, Personal | 0 comments

In the late 70’s my father had a crazy job over in the 1 year we spent in Australia. I think he spent MONTHs behind one of those giant desktop magnifying glasses, hand-engraving a seamless texture pattern that was eventually applied on the handles of a ski pole. Think about that…one tiny random pattern at a time was custom hand-engraved one little shape at a time with the sole purpose of making a single piece of recreational equipment look nicer without really being noticed. I’m pretty sure he still has a sample of this ski pole handle with him somewhere. I recall him telling me with pride how he made this pattern look absolutely seamless and balanced by hand. Meanwhile, hundreds of skiers might have purchased this ski pole and not taken a single glance at the texture or considered that it took a designer months to do it.

Today, we have computers and software that probably alleviated the need to do that type of work. What took my dad months in the 70’s can maybe be done in a matter of minutes with the right software. But it never failed to remind me ever since to take notice of the little things. Every material possession you own has in some form or fashion, better or worse, been the result of sometime making those product design choices.

For the aspiring young designers…take a moment of time each day to just notice design in whatever form it takes. The methods I use to get inspiration:

  1. Subscribe to some design magazines. I currently subscribe to Wired (great info-graphics), and Photoshop User. But more direct design rags like PRINT are often good sources of material. There’s something to be said about how many of these print sources are offering online versions these days for tablet readers. I tried reading Wired using the app which was neat, but somehow it didn’t beat the convenience of just flipping open the magazine sitting on my desk whenever I needed a break away from looking at a digital screen.
  2. Websites and Twitter feeds. I bookmark a bunch of my personal favorites to look at each morning. Sites like Toxel, Smashing Magazine, Best Web Gallery, TNW, are among routine sources where I hunt for daily inspiration. I even use an app like Flipboard on my iPad just to peruse all these sites at once like a magazine. Twitter is good in the sense that you can subscribe to those artists you really admire and get some insight as to what they see and use each day too. I follow a few prominent web designers out there along with a bunch of photographers.
  3. Travel. It doesn’t matter of  you’re visiting an exotic local like Portugal, or you’re just running down to the nearest McDonald’s. Try pull out that phone camera once in a while and just snap one or two things that might be interesting looking along the way. Once I was seated at Starbucks waiting for a client when “snap”, I accidentally took a shot from my DSLR on my lap. Turned out I caught this really cool light and shadow pattern passing through the tabletop I was seated at that day. I’m not sure I can replicate the look of that photo if I tried. My point being, just take anything, you never know what might catch your attention that day to inspire your next project. Of course if you’re traveling away, it’s much easier to take notice of different things.

Anyhoo. I hope that offers you just a little to think about today. Remember my dad and his crazy patterned ski pole handle.