I get this question a lot. Where does my inspiration come from? People often ask me how I come up with new visual design concepts when building websites. When I speak to web designers, I often hear that building a website in HTML/CSS is doable or at least easy enough to research, but coming up with new visual design concepts is the most challenging. Believe it or not, I find this to be true for me as well.

Although some may say I have a decent portfolio of work that is visually appealing, what people don’t know about me is that I really don’t consider myself a creative person. Well, yes I’m creative but I’m not creative in a natural sense. I have to work at it like most “non-creative” people. My most valuable asset is being able to study and learn from others and apply different types of designs to my own work. That’s where I excel. And the way to become good at studying others and apply things to your own work (for good results) is simply all about repetition. Practice makes perfect.

One of my favorite places to visit for inspiration is TheFWA (The Favorite Website Awards). TheFWA website is a great resource and collection of some of the best flash websites on the Internet. Although I don’t design flash sites, the visual design work alone is enough to create a spark. The inspiration most of the time comes from the small details rather than the overall look-n-feel of the sites. Some of the best ideas come from small widgets, buttons, arrows, boxes, shadow treatments, pop-up overlays, etc.

In addition to getting inspiration from the sites featured on TheFWA, I also visit the agency’s websites that are responsible for the work. Often times you can find even more top-notch work when visiting the agency site as well. After a while, you’ll be able to build up a nice list of resources and places to visit when ever in need of that little spark for your next project.