Design Ideas?

Where do you guys get your design ideas from? I always thought of myself as imaginative, but it seems my creativity comes to a blockage once I try to incorporate such thoughts into working designs.I'm always one at heart for gradiants and simple designs that theme "elegance" and "sleek"the best way to describe what I'm about is the layout of Apple.com's new Mac Pro webpage. Gradient black background, grey divider and strokes, and a feel to it that juxtaposes with the look of the new powerbook.But it seems everytime I come up with an idea, once I do a little research on the layout and design to make sure it is unique (I sell templates and web sets so it needs to be unqiue), i always come across some page with the general design I've been working on.I like to have a wide range of basic templates that I can stem off from. I know most people working on a single (perhaps personal) webpage start with their basic idea and continually upgrade, eventually reaching what they settle on. But I don't have that kind of time to dillydally with what I'm expected to output in the time I quote.So, running out of ideas, I inquire as to where you guys get your inspiration from? Be it nature, something you saw in the workroom, etc. Details would be awesome. thanks in advance

That's probably the biggest problem with designing a unique website design, there are hundreds if not millions designs already. I suggest you combine the best from the templates together, keeping the wishes of your customer (or yourself) in mind. I'm not quite a designer myself, but if you make a themed website I suggest you go dig into that theme, if you're making a website about technolegy give it a mettalic look, if you're making a site about macs give it a shiny design combining green with another color, if you're making a gaming site use renders from the games played.

Well I am still a beginner at making designs but what I do is I look around the section here at people showing off their websites or just go around to find sites I like and take some ideas from each place and put them together. Other days I just take out a piece of paper and start drawing different things until I make the design I want. To make it unique I put in some Javascript effects or what not to make it look a bit different from the others.

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when i have webdesigner blockage(if thats what they call it) ,To get inspiration i would normally vist other designers sites,then take look at the best templates they have..then i will try to see if i can come up with something better or see if i can do the same design but,with more improvements & features. sometimes i also create new designs by just going back to my old designs and playin around with them till i get a whole new design.......

you gotta get a clear image of what you want before you design it, that way you can just bring it to life. i just get a feel for what i want, and go with it... sometimes i come up with different ideas halfway through, and i go with it...just see what works and what dosen't, play around with it..

it is very hard to be creative now in days but sometimes window opewns and wow something new.. you just have to keep looking and seeing things.. try combining ideas together.. usually that helps with the uniqeness and defeniatley a way to be creative..

I'm the kind of guy who likes slick and elegent tech. looks to a web page. And I just total love flash sites. But then you don't get the feel of the hard work of regular web design and the challenge. It's all about the challenges. That's where we learn. We struggle then, sure. But when we struggle and FINALLY find the right match, we learn that problem and will be able to cope with it fast.Also something I'd like to see more from sites is the "quick links" everyone is in a hurry now...or I am anyways. Or maybe we know what we are looking for, but can't go to the place with a link because we don't know it. I know from my recent works that I need to make quick links. And to do that, I've got to intagrate it into my design and make it look as good as possible.On top of these two thoughts, is the concept of "filling in the holes". Keep the web sites full of things to do. Expand the design to be compatable with lots of possible features and/or type room.Yet another thing that bothers me is the fact that when the templates released, put a readme with it or help those who are not knowledgeable of coding/graphic designing. Guide them to sucess. Let them learn from it.

im still a beginner at making templates. I like making php templates just because they are so easy to upkeep. they aren't hard to update like .html or other types. But what i do is to see what is in, i realizied that most people i talk to including me are going for the "glossy", "sleek", or the flash designs. Im still experimenting with flash, but im still not all that great at it.

Design is important factor, and being original on www is really a Sisyphean challenge. After a while, if you are not talented really you can find yourself stuck in belife that your site isn't good enough beacouse it has lamme design! That is a big mistake. You need to remember the main purpose of HTML and WEB, which is exchanging of information.

From my point of view i never judge a website based on it's design, but of it's content. Also, it needs to be clear and simple, so that user can easily find what he's looking for. Some sites that are great in design, and have good content sometimes find themselves in between of loosing the point when design makes the priority and simplicity of linking through content just becomes way to much complex. some designers just love drop down menus, i haateee them couse it never works right.. never ever.. ..

i'm babling right now, just remember content is priority desing comes second

I found it best to look at templates from other sites. Best to download the free teamplates and get the feel of how they coded it. Knowing how they coded it changes they way you design it.

To design a website u must combine creativity with pre-determined rules to get a desirable result . Where I get the ideas from depends on the context . The design of Informative websites differs from less informative ones. anyway As long as u keep to the rules u can implement your ideas in design.

Well the two main factors are the content and your user group. If your content is corporative (by that I mean professional and not flooded with smilies or typos) then you'll be going after a corporative theme. Then again the flash type will need flash themes.

In terms of your usergroup its the same thing. The flashy type (gamers, anime fans), requires flashy layouts where the corporative worker doesn't want a 500x600 pic of a half naked anime girl in the background.

I design layouts for mmog's so I use anime orientated layouts, they appeal to almost all mmog players .

the only good place I know of that has more than 100 layouts is:
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

As a side note..

You'll probably never be truly unique. The best thing to do is take out the elements out of the layouts you like and play around with them. When all else fails use photoshop and raw up your own graphics modelled on those of the layouts XD

you can surf along the net to get some aspiration. with this you need a pinch of enthusiasm of creativity. good knowledge of server side and client side scripting, w3c standards, css are some must to design a good website

I get my ideas from a lot of places. Try sports or something like that!