Web design shouldn’t be the inspiration for more web design. It’s vital for the medium to look externally for ideas. Unfortunately, that often isn’t the case. Social networking tools like Twitter or site submission sites like DesignFloat encourage a limited viewpoint. They’ll provide you with examples of great web design. But it’s design that’s already been done. To avoid a descent towards generic and uninspiring results, it’s vital to look to other mediums. Great design is art, and artists seek inspiration everywhere.
All artistic mediums have talented and visionary artists. Move away from looking at other websites, and look at art. Here’s an example of some artists who don’t inspire me and inspire my work.
Grace Coddington
Grace Coddington is the Creative Director for American Vogue. She doesn’t see fashion as business, she sees fashion as art. She’s also an artist who truly understands the importance of art that tells a story. Her fashion spreads in Vogue have a coherent narrative. This narrative not only highlights great fashion, it engages the emotions as well.
Take a look at “Brief Encounter” from the February issue of Vogue. With creative direction from Coddington and photography from Annie Liebovitz, it demonstrates two masters of their art working in harmony.
Gerald Scarfe
It’s pretty impressive to be able to move seamlessly from political satire, to rock music, to Disney productions. Cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe manages it. He’s been drawing satirical cartoons for The Sunday Times for more than forty years, for the New Yorker for nearly twenty, is responsible for the visual creativity of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, designed theatrical sets and supervised nearly a thousand artists on Disney’s Hercules!
There’s a certain visciousness in Scarfe’s artwork that sets him ahead of any other satirist I know. His cartoons have been described as “savage”, demonstrating his ability to provoke genuinely visceral responses.
Irrational Games / 2K Marin
Are video games art? It’s a question that’s been answered far more in the positive since the 2007 release of Bioshock. Games with great graphics are common. Games with a genuine creative vision are not. Bioshock created a dystopian vision that treated gamers as mature and intelligent, drawing on inspiration from the likes of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. In creating the underwater city of Rapture they created a truly original, intimidating and moving setting, realised in both visual appearance and underlying concept. Bioshock 2’s recent release continues that vision. Of course, such a vision would have disappeared without a great game to support it, which thankfully they also achieved!
If you have the opportunity, download the “Art of Bioshock” PDF (75 MB) for a real understanding of the development of the vision, and take a look at the Cult of Rapture.
Valentino
A second fashion oriented artist, but then fashion is one of the most original and creative industries around. An Italian fashion designer who worked in the industry for fifty years before his retirement in 2008, Valentino Garavini inspired and dressed fashion icons from the 1960s to the present day. Valentino’s design achieves opulence without ostentatiousness, and his use of color inspiration from the natural world is superb.
Clearly, despite his retirement, Valentino the fashion company remains heavily influenced by his work, as demonstrated by their Spring/Summer 2010 Haute Couture line.