We are, each one of us, inspired on a regular basis. Inspiration is stimulation for the human mind to creative thought or to the making of art. That’s what Mr Thesaurus tells us anyhow.

But, the thing with inspiration is that it’s not always a sudden brilliant idea, a ‘leap out of the hot bath’ eureka moment. Design inspiration, more often than not and given the requisite level of talent, comes from fleeting glimpses of relevant stimuli followed by a cumulation of intelligent research, hard work and a tried and tested creative process.

Without totally denouncing the creative industry, and therefore myself, most great design is actually not new. Not in the same way that Ferdinand Porsche designed a vehicle (The VW Beetle) that changed the future of the automotive industry or Mr László Bíró (the ballpoint pen) designed an inexpensive, reliable and maintenance-free writing implement. No, these are huge moments in history and are probably more readily filed under I for Invention.

Inspiration is taken from everything we see or hear around us as we go about our daily business. It’s all pieces of a creative jigsaw that a good designer takes, interprets, improves and makes work for his client.

Cultivating the creative process

From a designers point of view, there are great places to hang out on the internet, that help fill the glass of creative juice. This page (and more often my blog) will showcase some of these haunts and also some of the inspiration that has given me same ‘wow’ feelings that, hopefully, my clients have when I present my work.

This portrayal of Godfather of Soul really hits the spot

James Brown Poster by Sergio Moctezuma

When the mouse finger works its way around the creative ether in search of design inspiration, one comes across huge amounts of work that take the eye somewhere cool. Sometimes the same pixel pushing digit takes on a mind of its own and uses electronic mail to pass the word amongst ones friends and creative cohorts.

Sometimes, on the odd extremely rare occasion, the designer digit takes us to that creative quarter where we are left speechless.

This poster by hasn’t quite left me without a voice, I still have a literary one, but it’s pretty close. There’s been much pontificating about this poster, (unfortunately our industry is rife with over-analytic self obsessives) and some of the feedback on sites parading this piece was somewhat disparaging.

But. Sometimes you just have to sit back and look at the aesthetics, the skill and the execution. To manipulate type to create such accurate facial contours is a tough ask. In this case, I think, it is masterful.

So hats off and back to the silence then.