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What does it take to become inspired? Where do you go? What do you see? What is it that gets your wheels spinning? To me, inspiration is unique and comes to each of us in different ways. For some, it’s visiting an art gallery, paging through design books, or browsing the internet. For my college design professor, it was showering. He once told our class that his greatest ideas come to him in the shower. But for me, I don’t have one particular source for inspiration – I have many.

Often times I use the internet for inspiration because of it’s convenience. However, I love thedesign annuals from PRINT Magazine and GD USA. Each year these magazines release issues composed of winning designs in each different design category. Basically, it’s about 300 some pages of inspiring art, from Annual Reports, Invitations, and Collateral to Identity Design, Multimedia, and Package Design. I never leave for the office in the morning without at least one of these magazines in my bag. If my co-workers have ever seen me paging through magazines while at work and wondered what I was doing, now you know – I’m getting inspired!

Sometimes you will see me waiting in the lobby of a doctor’s office flipping through magazines to pass the time. If I see something I like, whether it’s an interesting typography treatment or a simple tiny graphic in a call out box, I will sneakily rip the page out of the magazine, tuck it into my bag and add it to my collection of inspiring art (I do this while at the gym too).

Sometimes you will see me driving with my camera phone in the air trying to snap a photo of an interesting billboard design or advertisement. Now I know this isn’t always the safest option, but I do my best not to cause any accidents.

For me, shopping can be a great source for inspiration too. Last Christmas, I walked the entire mall with my camera, flashing pictures of the different displays and window art. There were a lot of fun color combinations and type treatments that immediately caught my eye. Target and AC Moore are great stores to get inspired in. My camera is always handy and you will see me taking pictures of whatever catches my eye. Whether it’s a Hallmark card with an interesting graphic on the front, a cool pattern on a piece of clothing, or a scrap book page example pasted to the bulletin board in the paper isle, there I am, camera in hand, snapping away.

So, while some people have one particular thing they do or see to get inspired, that is not the case for me. My ideas come from so many different places ¬– magazines, books, nature, clothes, wallpaper, paint books, websites, blogs, wrapping paper, gift bags, greeting cards, stores, outdoor displays, and the list could go on. Henry David Thoreau once said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

Posted by Nicole Maziarz, Zer0 to 5ive