Pro Socialgo > For web community software

In what you love, there is no end to inspiration.

I won't lie. I was a terrible hack when I first started web design. I would grab CSS from this site and that, HTML here and there, but it showed, they all looked like frankenstine, because they were ideas of many different people, and as much as I want to, I can't make another artist's ideas look good. 

Quit making it such a dredge by forcing creativity upon your self that is not yourself. It really does leave you with a un-satisfied taste in your mouth, because, you go back and look at the stuff you hacked from, and there is something missing from yours. some balance or invisible grid you can't quit make out. It makes designing your web site more of a experiment than a creative decision.  I'm not talking about inspiration. I constantly find inspiration in other work and try my own twist on their idea. I'm talking about the code and graphics. 

Design what you love 
What do you love? Do you love the ocean, or rusty old trucks--the candy dish your grand mother had on the dresser beside her collection of glass angels. 

I loved junk. My Grandfather had a thrift store, and it was full of junk. Old junk, that even back then I couldn't believe people would buy.  Every time we came to spend the day with him, he would let us pick one thing out of the store to take home. I usually went for the army gear, rusty grenades (no pin :), helmets and canteens. As I got a bit older I started picking photographs. He would buy from estate sales so there would be boxes of boxes of old torn weathered family photos. What people did with them back then? I don't know. But I loved them. I still do. I go to estate sales and buy pictures of their family, old letters and medical forms. 

I use these in my designs, or for inspiration in a design.  I almost can't get passed flowery old textured looks, but I have to to keep my job. Everyone wants the web 2.0 slick minimalism.  Don't get me wrong, I have a special place in my heart for that kind of design too, but it is not my true design. 



Put it together
To incorporate what you love in to your designs is one of the most satisfying  accomplishments a artist can have, especially when you do it well, which is about half the time. 

But you say, "I don't know how to incorporate what I love".  Everything has a feeling to it, and sometimes that feeling is all you have to go on in design. You may love women :), well women have inspired great design all through time. Think of the majestic curves, and the soft textures, the colors of beige, pink, stunning red lips, all of the tones of brown in her hair. The Ocean is liquid, so make your site a liquid design with subtle colors and make use of blur, smear and ripple.  Even video games bring about certain shapes and colors in your mind. Take a snap shot of your video game in play, horizontally blur it, brake it up, copy and paste until it's unrecognizable as that game, but instead colors, balance, shapes and harmony. 



The zen of ones and zeros
In what you love, there is no end to inspiration. When you start to indulge this part of your design you will be amazed at how far it will take you. And don't ever take the easy way... As in the example above, don't put pink flamingos and pictures of the bahamas (unless your a travel agent), Don't just put a woman's body (unless your Zauku), dig deeper. Challenge yourself by scanning things that represent that love, find colors that best represent the many emotions it gives you. Shapes that harmonize.

Your on the computer all day anyway, why not make it something that adds to your life rather than takes from it. Yes, you can have spiritual, existential moments even with ones and zeros.  

I've been a designer for almost 15 ears, though most of that time was spent in print and video graphics, I love web design the mostest. I think I love it so much because it doesn't have to end. As a songwriter I learned a long time ago that the joy was in the making more than the product, and with web design, the making never has to end, especially with your Socialgo Template.  

Another reason to love the web is it provides the perfect problem for creativity to exist.  Creativity is problem solving -- that's it. The greater the problem, the greater the creativity it takes to overcome, and as we all know, the web is one big problem, because it evolves constantly, never sagnet, never standing still. 

Have you ever had someone say, "Just do whatever you want." I hate that. Because there is no problem to solve. It's much better when they say, "Our colors are dirt brown and lime green, and our logo is two feet long."  

I find as the years go on that I  have more and more customers that tell me to do whatever, so I've started providing my own problems, to force me to solve them with creativity.

Working with someone else's code is always a great creative problem, so Socialgo is just one big problem. Because you can't move the menu above the header -- you can't put a class or ID where there is not one and so on. 

So here we have the perfect formula for successful creativity.  Don't get frustrated--get creative. See it as a adventure. Try something that our not sure is possible, or try something you don't know how to do. 

If anyone asks me how to learn coding of any type. I tell them go out and sell a web page, specifically with something you don't know how to do. Tell your wife and children you will see them in two weeks, and lock yourself in a room until the job is done. By the end, you will have learned more than a semester at college. Then of course you will get the call that it doesn't work in IE6 7 or 8 and you have to lock yourself in a room for another 3 days. 

In the same way, charge yourself to do something your not quiet sure how to do, and commit to it until it is through. continue to do this with any code you want to learn. I tell you, most of the great coders, CSS, HTML etc.. I know have done it this way. I don't know many, actually only one, that went to school for it.

If you get stuck give me a ring, or widget lab is real helpful with SG. Just continue to challenge yourself. Just make sure you backup every thirty min. Keep them by date and time so you can always step back if you need to. Or, you could just buy a mac and use CSSedit.