Inspired by AnsteyDesign

As the creative graphic designer at AnsteyDesign people often ask me:

“How do you find your inspiration?”

I wish there was a simple answer to this. I’d happily settle with something like:

“Ideas just come to me in my sleep…”

Unfortunately, the truth is a little less rose tinted (although I do sometimes wake in the middle of the night with an idea, and then scramble for a pen and paper before it drifts out of my head forever).

My search for inspiration is never ending and comes from the world around me. Everything I see, read and hear is potentially inspirational.

I have often thought that as a graphic designer I was born with an almost unhealthy appetite for inspiration. It effects every part of my waking life to the point where, given half the chance, I will not throw any magazine or newspaper article away in case it should spark some creative flare in years to come. This has resulted in my wife periodically clearing out my study and I have taken to scanning interesting designs and articles onto my Mac’s hard drive.

Sad to say I have always been like this. When I lived in Germany I spent six months collecting leaflets and flyers from wherever I went. The result was two boxes full of paper, which, to this day, are stored somewhere in my parent’s attic.

It is my appetite for inspiration which causes me to pay attention to television adverts, newspaper adverts, billboards, posters, flyers and leaflets. I actively search the web for cleverly built websites and then study the coding to see how it was written. When I visit the supermarket I notice if a brand has been rebranded and I form an opinion. Even a walk through the woods and fields will produce something to capture and inspire me; a fallen tree in winter, a blue egg shell in spring. It really is never ending.

But then, when I stop looking and I open Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Quark, Illustrator or Blender it hits me that now it’s my turn to do, rather than be, inspired.