I’ve been finding myself going to a lot of design blogs lately which makes me feel like more of the “web design community” in some silly way. I remember when I really started getting into de.licio.us I felt the same way…more in the loop somehow and quite cognizant of the exposure to all these wonderful new resources I was getting.

I just downloaded a Firefox extension this week called Foxmarks which is a really awesome tool for synching your Firefox bookmarks between multiple computers, and in gearing up for the synch I started going through a lot of my old bookmarks and organizing them, which included setting up a new division for categorized blogs. Sure, these sites are all cliques to some degree in their own ways, but more often than not they inspire me to try new things with web design, development, and experimentation in general. Sort of a fantasy version of the little snippets I dream of accumulating in my humble collection of notes found here at p/w/p. Here are some of these blogs which I am starting to visit regularly…

1. Web Designer Wall
   Certainly one of the most visually intensive web design blogs out there, I feel energized and kind of giddy every time I stop by. It might be a bit garish for some people’s taste, but I find it inspiring to see someone go crazy and let their artistic vision shine, and it always reminds me of just how much further I can push it. This one is focused on everything I love in my creative niche including CSS, Photoshop, development, inspiration, etc…techy artsy…just my cup of tea!

2. Smashing Magazine
   This one is a resource I’ve been visiting for months, probably since before all these others. They have a wonderful assortment of popular posts on the right which includes some great compilation lists of “Best [insert descriptor and number here] Website Designs”….anything from topics like dark to minimal.. a very good source of inspiration when trying to get out of a slump while designing a new site. The other new articles/tutorials in general are also usually pretty awesome, whatever the category. I am writhing to shrink the green h2 tags down to like 30px though!

3. PSD Tuts
   This is a newer one I’ve been visiting, and they have some really awesome tutorials. I look to this one more for learning how to get more out of Photoshop in terms of abstract effects…not usually photo-retouching or actual construction of, say, object xyz. I find it really difficult to find good resources on getting the most out of Photoshop’s ability to make the kind of effects you see on movie posters or other “commercial yet classy” icing-on-the cake type stuff. I’m obsessed with getting more applicable uses out of blend modes, for instance.

4. Blog.SpoonGraphics
   This is another relatively new one for me, but it looks really promising and I just learned how to make a really cool ribbon effect in Illustrator, something which, again, I’d never learned how to leverage out of one of my favorite programs. There are so many possibilities like that buried in these Adobe apps that I boggle my mind with, wondering how the best in the biz have learned how to master all of them. Like, there’s no manual I’ve found yet…not one that contains non-cheesy, real-life examples for use in good design.

5. Veerle’s Blog
   And of course Veerle’s blog…one that I’m finding to be a classic on anyone’s list. Same as some of the above..lots of inspiration, discussion, and tutorials.

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Tags: blog, Design, inspiration, tutorial