How do you get inspired?

[wangobangy]

I have been practicing my HTML/CSS by working completely from scratch, but I have no idea how I want this project to look. It's just like art block or writers block! All I really have right now is a little sidebar and a section for... something. I don't even know what kind of theme I am going for. I want to do something different from what I usually do (which is highly saturated colours on black backgrounds and lots of sharp edges) but trying to come up with anything new that I like is difficult for me, especially since I am so new at this.

I want to hear what you folks like to do. What do you do when you don't know how or where to start? Do you look at websites, or gifs? Is it just something that hits you?

[arcus]

I look at my old sites for inspiration, and draft out ideas for layouts onto paper. I then figure out the colour palette, which helps a lot since it sets the mood of the page.

When I start to work on the layout, I don't aim to recreate any of the drafts one to one. Instead, I try to get something basic down, and come up with ideas as I go along.

[wangobangy]

draft out ideas for layouts onto paper

I've been meaning to try that out. I worry a lot that I will try to go for a one-to-one recreation of whatever I come up with, but other than that I might try that out tomorrow!

[Memory]

Something that I enjoy doing with web design specifically is sketching out a few layouts with hand on paper, see what works for me, what I think I could realistically turn into code (really, you could probably do that with anything you design on paper, but I mean mostly in terms of my skill level lol) and go from there! Usually in the process of this, when I get to the coding part I'll have more ideas of things I want to add, or in the process of trying to fix issues with my current code I'll come up with creative ideas.

But also, just looking at other peoples designs and gain inspiration that way! Not just with neocities or other personal websites, but tumblr has a lot of inspiration too from their "themes"!

[Melooon]

Inspiration is like play right? So how do you play? You don't play by watching others, you play by joining them; you don't go into a game knowing how it will go (and if you do it's a bad game) - you just jump in and get lost in it. Iv written a lot about inspiration and thoughts on where creative energy comes from over the years.. but it really is just play!

You start with one simple action, one kick of a ball, and you follow what happens and you get lost in it. After that you don't even need to look for inspiration, it comes at you from everywhere! 

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Also, if everything fails, go for a walk. Once I read it as "getting your blood circling and out of your butt" and it sounds silly, but sometimes you need to stop doing the thing you usually do and relax while your mind works in the background  it might come back with a few ideas!!

[wangobangy]

These are all really good responses!

I'm definitely going to try out some of these things, and try to just have much more fun when creating webpages.

[brisray]

I've not much to add from what other people have said but having fun is the most important part, whether you're playing with the design or content. The other thing is just making a start, once you've got an inkling of something, other ideas will come. It's not a job (some people do make money from their personal sites) and if you're not enjoying what you do, your site will simply join the zillion others that haven't been updated in years or simply disappear.

What I do is when I find a site I like design elements from is bookmark it then when I feel like it, go back through them just to make sure I still find them good looking or even usable. There's many sites with the "3,427 coolest personal sites of 2023" or whatever an I'll sometimes scroll through those. I nearly always end back at  W3Schools. Their pages are simple, not cluttered with other people's CSS, and their "Try it Yourself" pages are editable so you can play around with your own ideas based on the basics they give as much as you like. It's not suited for entire pages, but individual elements. Unlike places such as CodePen, JSFiddle and others you can't save the code but you can certinly copy it to your own computer.

As for content, write about whatever you're interested in. Take inspiration from wherever you can. If you think of something you'd like to write about, write it down somewhere. I keep lists of those along with sources for future use I've come across. Places I hang out in will send occasional emails like "from your reading history you might be interested in..." Most I'm not at all, but now and then they'll send something that grabs my attention and I think I can turn into something I can use.

[kurohaato]

Honestly I just explore the web and see what I like and what I can build on. Find a little crab gif? What if it's interactive? BAM you now have a little crab that tries to yoink your mouse. If you have a project, maybe try making a style sheet to match. Want to post pictures of your pet on their birthday? Make the page look like the birthday invitations your mom used to make in word. Sharing camping tips? Have a little forest themed stylesheet with pops of bright orange and a little bear cursor. And you don't have to stick to one style, play around! If you want to get out of your comfort zone, try a super minimal page like status.cafe or try making a gif-heavy page with loads of decoration. Just have fun with it.