Inspiration when needed

I love it when I come across a webiste that opens up a whole new set of avenues for me to explore; areas of the web I have hitherto been unaware of, websites that are nowhere to be found in the search engine results pages (SERPS) or located in countries which I refrain from entering due to language barriers. Great design can overcome language barriers, but a search engine will not show me a site in a foreign language unless I search for it – and how can I do that if I don’t know it exists?

The inspirtation behind this post is Design Meltdown; a website about cool and inspirational website design and the website that lead to the book “The Web Designer’s Idea Book” – which I have just purchased and enjoyed immensely.

The book is great for designer’s looking for inspiration with web design projects, but the great thing is the quality of the websites being linked to and reported on.

Most of them are based around cool designs and don’t overtly opt for the search engine optimisation approach. Which is why a lot of them will remain hidden from the mass market, and this is a shame, as many of them offer much more value than the run of the mill websites you tend to see on the first pages of search engines.

Design Meltdown is divided into numerous categories and groups together websites by style, colour and/or genre. There are tutorials, tips, advice and some off topic writings to boot. All in all a great place to hang out or look for inspiration.

I can see myself spending a lot of time at Design Meltdown in the future and I will bring you some of my favourite designs/websites I find whilst I am there.

The Web Designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide To Themes, Trends & Styles In Website Design