Are you a creative person or going to become one? Chances are then that this article will help…

Oh, but before I begin, needed to tell you something.

I am Gaurav and this is my first article. This bit may not be too useful to you as compared to others which you would have read on the internet. But I had to begin somewhere so I did with this one.

Ok, we talked enough . Let’s get on with the article.

Every time before I begin to make something creative I always prefer to see some creative work by other designers to get ideas. Let’s imagine I have to make a brochure for a new restaurant which is recently opened in my neighbourhood. So I begin my search on Google by using different keywords like Restaurant Brochure, Cool Restaurant Brochure and so on.

But Restaurant Brochure is a specific keyword and it’s hard to find good results while relaying on this. So I use more generic keywords like brochures, good brochures, etc. Often I still don’t find good examples. So what should I do now? Have you ever been stuck in this condition? Yes? Okay, let’s try to get over this problem.

We start our hunt for creativity. First, I try and browse art community websites. There are plenty of them but I love DeviantArt (abbreviated as dA). It is a very useful artist community site where any artist can exhibit and discuss works. What’s particularly nice about this web site is that works are archived by category structure like interface, photography, stock images, flash, digital and so on. You can also download useful resources like brushes, tutorials, icons and wallpapers.

So just search for brochure and you will find some really stunning examples right in the first page. You can play with different keywords and find different results.

Other than that you can get inspired by the inspiration section of many digital web magazine websites. Two of them are:

1. www.smashingmagazine.com
   

   Smashing Magazine is a digital web magazine founded by Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedmanhat that offers resources and advice to web developers and web designers

   

2. www.hongkiat.com/blog

   A technology blog that talks about technology, designs, tips & tricks.

   

Then, there are so many image hosting websites like Flickr, where people share personal photographs. You can find a lot of creative material there. Few of them are:

• www.flickr.com

  Online photo/video sharing application

  

• http://www.pixdaus.com

  Photos of the beautiful world around

  /li>

• www.weheartit.com

  Social bookmarking tool for images and videos

  

• www.1x.com

  Photo community of only high quality photos

  

• www.vi.sualize.us

  Social bookmarking website for visual contents

  

• www.jpgmag.com

  It’s a community, magazine and a website connected through a bond of love for photography

  

Among this you can extend your search to stock photography websites like Getty Images where you can browse various forms of images like vectors, illustrations, photos and download them online through a variety of subscription plans. But as long as you are viewing those pictures (not downloading) for inspiration you needn’t pay money.

http://www.shutterstock.com/

http://www.gettyimages.com/

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/

With all the above examples, there are so many other online places where you can find excellent creative stuff. Here are some of my favourite links:

CSS WEBSITES SHOWCASES

http://cssmania.com/

http://www.csselite.com/

http://w3csites.com/

BANNERS

http://www.20dollarbanners.com/portfolio

Web Templates, Flash Templates and other web design products

http://www.templatemonster.com/

http://www.icetemplates.com/

http://www.simavera.com/

Miscellaneous

http://www.behance.net/

http://www.graphic-exchange.com/

So, here’s hoping that my experience helps you get around ‘creativity’ blues.

- Gaurav (the big J)