Tales of a Designer

Recently Found Resources & Inspiration

I’ve been very busy this summer, both in doing Tridea work, travelling, and trying to get away from the computer a bit and enjoy the good weather while we have it. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been offline, in fact I’ve found some pretty nice resources and sources of inspiration lately that I’d like to share.

Cheat Sheet for Web Developers is my most recent find, which is an excellent resource for those of us that code websites. There are tons of PDF’s to download ranging from XHTML markup to CSS shorthand cheat sheets. This is definitely worth a bookmark.

Snipplr is a public source code repository ranging from front-end code to back-end code as well. I love this site and always refer to it when I hit a snag is trying to figure out some code problems. It also works with Textmate, my editor of choice.

Handwritten Typographers isn’t exactly a resource, but rather an interesting look at the handwriting of some well known typographers. There are some great fonts there too, that I’m looking forward to using in the future.

Graphic Exchange is an amazing source for inspiration. Here you’ll find anything from print, web, interior design, etc. The list goes on, but there is much to see here, and very easy to blow a lot of time looking at the great graphic design work.

And last but not least, The Dieline is another source of inspiration for looking at great packaging design. As a designer on the web, it’s always important to look at great design on other mediums outside the web to get inspiration, and this is another resource for just that.

So those are the recent resources that I’ve found, and I’m always looking for more. What are some recent resources you’ve found?

Publishing 2.0

I’m always on the hunt for new blogs, especially on the topic of online media and how the world is embracing the online media space, especially newspapers and overall journalism. One of the best blogs to do this, that I’ve found, is Publishing 2.0. They consistently write great posts, and always leaves you with something to think about when you’re done reading, and I always send off links to colleagues who like to do more in depth thinking of how people are using the web.

I would highly recommend this site to be in your feeds if these types of topics are of interest to you. One of my personal favorites is Evolution From Linear Thought to Networked Thought. I’m sure I could link up a bunch more but go read for yourself. It’s worth it and is a very good thought exercise.

Finally Using Tumblr

I’ve known about Tumblr since its release, and though it seemed like an interesting service, I didn’t feel that I had a need for it at first. A few weeks ago I signed up for it and poking around the dashboard (which has a great interface) I realized that I possibly had a use for it.

I wanted a place to consolidate my activities online between my three blogs (this one, personal blog, and the Tridea blog), Twitter, and my Del.icio.us links which are imported below in the Distractions section. Aside from those, I also wanted a place to to post media that isn’t necessarily design/development related, which is what my Del.icio.us links are limited to to keep within context of the content on this site. But I also find other interesting stuff that is not always related to design, so I not only want to keep a log these things, but maybe others could find it interesting as well. Tumblr gives me the chance to do that and bring all of my interests to one location.

So I purchased a domain name to use for my Tumblr account, which is philly-stream.com, and though I’ve only been using it for a couple days, I am liking it so far.

Do you use Tumblr? If so, how do you like it, and how do you use it?