Inspiration sources - where do you go for inspiration?

[Melooon]

What kind of places do you look for inspiration for your projects, whether they are games or websites or both?
Do you have any links or blogs you visit often for ideas?
How to you catalogue or manage your inspiration material?

For me personally; I screenshot a lot of things from videos, or that I find online (I gotta admit one of the few uses for Facebook is groups that share cool images).
I take pictures myself out in the world, generally if I see something that connects into other ideas. Taking walks in general; the idea of finding spaces and traveling is always inspiring. When your on a site your traveling through pages just like places on a hike.
I also find talking with people often gives me ideas that Id otherwise not figure out on my own; and of course looking at other peoples work to see how they solved things.
Oh and old games; something about old games always gives my ideas!
Oh oh and vintage magazines (Like LIFE from 1950s); particularly for font/text layout ideas or just overall cohesion.
Annd also artworks from just about any era.. although you have to be careful adapting them into web design because often they make the mood too serious.

For text ideas, I keep a note app open on my computer/phone, if I have a one line idea I'll put it in there, or into a todo app if I plan to expand on it later. For images, I used to just have a folder of them on my desktop, but I find a photo app like Eagle is easier to browse casually.

[Guest]

Usually inspiration just happens. I research some ancient Greek for a language project, come across an interesting historical fact, research from there, and suddenly I make a Mycanean-style website. Or I suddenly get this "what if" style idea when doing something unrelated and write fanfiction about that.

But if I deliberately go out for inspiration, I usually do the same things you do: look for old media of all kinds, and abstract their structure to the point where I can apply it to other contexts. Say, taking Romeo and Juliet, understanding how it relates to Shakespeare's time, and imagining how those same relations would work in today's world. In a way, that's how postmodern art works: understanding the past and its aesthetics, and remixing it in a contemporary context.

[tarocchilla]

Mhh so i don't always look for inspiration, i think it just sortof comes when i pay attention to what i am looking at, so i guess that my way for looking for inspiration is paying close attention to what surrounds me.
Like Serj Tankian said: Inspiration is everywhere, you just need to look around and appreciate what you are seeing to be inspired. (not the exact words he said but you get what he meant...)

Sometimes my emotions inspire me in a way, it's like each emotions i have creates a painting in my mind, but that is a bit hard to materialize in the real world for now!

[Zusk]

Inspiration is really important to my own writing process, I have found.

This video was really inspirational to me. It taught me that fleshing out a creative concept you need to be able to connect it to the original, inspirational spark that gave your concept meaning in the first place.

I began writing like this, taking a base concept - the "seed of the idea" - and attaching additional concepts to it like branches coming off of the sapling that grew from that seed.
This way, when a viewer experiences your creative concept, they can trace your concept down from any of its "branches" to its "seed" to understand the core ethos of your work!

For where I go to find inspiration? I will quote the post above, as it summarizes my views pretty well..

Mhh so i don't always look for inspiration, i think it just sortof comes when i pay attention to what i am looking at, so i guess that my way for looking for inspiration is paying close attention to what surrounds me.
Like Serj Tankian said: Inspiration is everywhere, you just need to look around and appreciate what you are seeing to be inspired. (not the exact words he said but you get what he meant...)

Sometimes my emotions inspire me in a way, it's like each emotions i have creates a painting in my mind, but that is a bit hard to materialize in the real world for now!

"Ideas, we don't really make them. We just catch them, like fish.". Typically, however, I lean on the emotional experiences rather then using literal inspiration. I think to a moment in my life that I want to invoke with my work, then I think of what elements I can include in my creative work that will illicit that emotion.

[MrsMoe]

As a screenwriter, my favorite movies are my main inspiration (of course), but I'm very passionate about other forms of media as well. I want whatever I make to have a dreamlike quality to it, so I often turn to the best mediums for loose, surreal stories: video games and web videos.

For video games, I really love rpg maker horror stuff and anything indie. Mainstream horror games (except for Silent Hill) don't do a lot for me because a lot of them feel the same. I get nothing aesthetically or thematically for darkly lit games where you fight monsters. But games like Yume Nikki or Omori or Ib have that trippy quality I'm trying to capture. It's the same with ARGs and analogue horror. I know everyone thinks they're played out and it's easy to point at the clichés and laugh, but I'm just so glad the internet has allowed so much inventive horror content to exist without any restrictions. Stuff like Petscop, Local 58, and The Walten Files have all inspired me in their own ways.

[Gans]

I found a weird way of inspiration: Don't "watch" a movie, just close your eyes, get some headphones and listen to the pure sound of that movie. Then let your imagination create an image for you. Your first thought counts, no tinkering allowed! Be misguided in terms of story, it's not a problem, as you can correct your misconceptions on the fly, if they'd break the movie.

It turns the best, well planed story into the most ridiculous B-trash.

[neoratz]

i take lots of screenshots too! probably too much because they often get lost in my mass of photos i also like to take lots of notes of spur-of-the-moment ideas on my phone and i keep lots of fun pictures on a tumblr sideblog to look at. the tag system makes it really easy to categorize stuff if i'm looking for a certain kind of thing to pull inspiration from having a collection of things i like helps me pick out what ideas or visuals attract me!

[Melooon]

I find video tours of spaces people have made really inspiring too! This clip is great, its about some guy who made a tea/poetry house - it incorporates all sorts of philosophies and I really like the idea of making spaces (both digital and physical) and are designed to inspire certain feelings and actions. (Skip to 15 mins to see the bit)

[SilkSkull]

For me I agree with the sentiment of inspiration coming when it wants but, I have spent many nights surfing through old defunct websites for inspiration, seeing the strange and varied works of the web really inspires me!

[1337nightbug]

Most of my inspo for my site comes from random things I come across on old site and random internet rabbitholes i find. sometimes i look at something and go "damn, that's smart!" and other times i go "wow, thats crusty and awful, but i appreciate what this has going on!"
I also like going through old sozai (web material) sites are really fun to go through because,,,,pwetty graphics,,,,
mateken.870search.com is a catalog of a few Japanese sozai sites, its all in Japanese (obviously) so a translation app of some kind might be needed to browse through it