I am a very odd person…now that we cleared that up I have an unusual way to gain inspiration. This isn’t the type of inspiration that will motivate you to great heights, but will give you some unusual insights into the world. These techniques may even provide you with the inspiration for some ground breaking designs.

Most websites are just a matter of gradients, boxes, shades of color. Over the past couple of years a large number of sites have taken a more realistic design. Some look like top-down views of desks, stacks of paper & coffee stains. The problem with all of this, they are top-down & 2 dimensional. So how do we over-come the fact your monitor is flat….Isometrics.

Take a look out of the nearest window to you, notice that everything has layers, the further something away is the smaller it appears. Now image diagonal lines going from each corner of your window frame. Where they meet in the middle is the furthest you can see at eye level. Step back for a moment and think about this, logically. If you can look out of a window and see objects in this manner, why can’t you do the same with your pc. You don’t need to just use windows, any object will do, I just offered a window for the relation to a monitor. You could even make a frame from a sheet of paper & take it out with you.

Here is the challenge, next time you design a website, graphic or wallpaper. Try to design it with a lot of depth. Intergrate things like links & text into the surroundings rather than overlaying them, if you need a home link make it out of a door. If you want to offer downloads maybe a computer in a room, you could even get very create and make each link a pathway, that leads onto another environment. Show me your results!