How often do you finally decide to start a project you’ve been meaning to work on only to discover you have absolutely no idea what to do?

I feel like I go through that with every project! What do I do? Research.

There are hundreds of remarkable articles on inspiring websites and Smashing Magazine usually puts together pretty good collections, like 60 Elegant and Visually Appealing Designs. If you’re one a little more for the typography of websites, there are 15 that make the crème de la crème list at I Love Typography.

I keep coming back to this collection of creative business cards from Daily Poetics. There are some very unique and a few bazaar cards in that collection! If you don’t click on any other link be sure to look at those business cards. And do your research on what makes a good business card, too.

You can also use these resources to add a little extra something to a design that isn’t quite there. Examine a design you like and figure out why you like it. Is it the colors? The layout? An extra little line, a fancy bullet point or an interestingly styled date? Adapt those elements to your own designs—you can even do cross-media adaptations! Who says you can’t make your print work have shiny buttons?

And of course, there’s always those awesome Flickr collections! Oh, yes, and Logo Pond, too. Their tagline even says “Identity Inspiration.”

So how do you find inspiration? What galleries do you have saved up in bookmarks or on del.icio.us?

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