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Where to Get Ideas and Inspiration When You Are Working From Home
The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that many of us are working from home more than ever and will continue to do so as we transition into a ‘new normal’. It seems the small things of our pre-pandemic lives, such as the ability to gather ideas and inspiration from fellow colleagues, family and friends, and the places we visit, have been taken for granted.
When it comes to design, ideas are crucial and sourcing them is something to take seriously. While implementation is also key, this cannot happen without an initial idea. Ideas are created by inspiration and are essential foundations for learning, experiencing and improving products.
Working within the same four walls, going outside to exercise or shop, and having very limited social interaction has led creatives struggling to find fresh ideas and inspiration. However, working from home for some means having more time on their hands to get back in tune with the things they love, as well as discovering new ones.
Here are some places to get ideas and inspiration when you are working from home:
Behance is a social media platform by Adobe that aims to discover and showcase creative work. Here, you can find projects completed on software such as Lightroom, XD and InDesign within the topics of interaction, graphic design, motion, and product design.
The platform has also been providing users with livestreams, where hosts — who are leading creatives from various fields of design — demonstrate their artistry and take part in daily challenges that viewers can then replicate.
Users can find their next career move, internship or freelance work on Behance too. The platform advertises jobs from around the world in all creative fields such as branding, art direction, UI/UX, fashion and many more.
This site is a go-to for those interested in mobile UI design. It includes mobile app resources and design ideas which are shown in screenshots of UI elements— think clean, crisp, and trendy — to incorporate into your own designs. Other elements like input field, menu and navigation are only a search away.
Awwwards is a professional web design body that aims to promote and recognise the best of design, creativity and innovation by developers, designers and web agencies.
Users can find inspiration by visiting their ‘Sites of the day’ which are handpicked by Awwwards and looking on their ‘Resources’ tab which has “stuff digital designers love!”; the user’s favourites can then be collated into a Collection to look back on. Creatives can also use the site to network and similarly to Behance, search for jobs across the globe by submitting their profile.
As the name suggests, Awwwards also has awards for developers that take part in their website competitions! Developers can submit their sites with the chance of winning official certificates and prizes.
Social media can often be a place we use as an escape from our work, but it is an underrated source of inspiration. As Instagram is a visual-focused platform, it already gives great opportunities for designers to showcase aesthetically pleasing work and ideas.
Many designers go further than this and explain design process theories and concepts to provide users with inspiring methods behind their creative madness. Inspirational quotes are also posted frequently — perfect for any designer reading this article who may need their thinking reawakened! In addition, features such as Instagram Live and Stories allow designers to broaden the content they make and who might be motivated by it.
LinkedIn is known more widely as a platform for networking with fellow professionals, but it can be a great place to find ideas and inspiration. Unlike Instagram, the attention span of those on LinkedIn is greater, so people don’t mind creating or reading visually pleasing posts that are accompanied with detailed explanations about their ideas or what motivates them.
LinkedIn users can stay on trend with their concepts by following hashtags, as well as searching for events, jobs, groups and content.
Panda is a website for all of your favourite websites — as well as for tools, resources and inspiration from the design and technology worlds. On Panda, users can keep tabs of their preferred news publications and websites which means ideas and inspiration can be gathered from multiple sources at once. Think catching up with the latest news on the pandemic via BBC News, to then reading an Artist Spotlight on Booooooom, to viewing the best branding, editorial and graphic design on Visual Journal after.
Is there anything we missed? Share how you get ideas and inspiration while working from home by tweeting us (@influx_digital) or commenting on our Instagram post (@digitalinflux).
Author: Sophie Hall
