Pictures. When I need to make something, no matter what the trigger was, I go looking for pictures to work with. I can't really describe my designproces. I don't think about it at all. Go to my introduction topic and click on click here. I shall describe how I made that, so you can get an idea how I get inspired:
-I need a lay-out
-I search for pictures on various themes
-I decided I wanted a woman
-I searched for the frontladies of some metal/rockbands
-I couldn't find pictures that where big enough
-I needed to blend and I am really bad at that
-I saw a composition on With Fairy Wings (the one with the fairies)
-My mind says "hey, that's an idea"
-I found a pretty picture of Amy Lee on a white background
-I went on searching for other frontwomen
-I decided that those needed a white blackground too.
-Go to home=>samples=>look at step one of the lay-out
-I didn't like it and look too much like the fairything on WFW.
-I used a few effects, I still didn't like it.
-I added two more pictures.
-I added more effects. See step two.
-I added more effects and colorschanges and stuff.
-See step three.
-I added a text.
-I added effects to the text.
-I used the colorpallette to make a background. I first wanted a mosaic background. So I made one, really big.
-I copied to header to see how it looked.
-I made a menubar background and a writing background.
-I decided it looked horrible.
-I changed the menubar.
-It looked better.
-I decided I wanted a different background too.
-Now the writing backgrounds looks crappy.
-Changed that too.
-Voila, the lay-out is ready...
Yes, that is a very long list of actions. I really take lots of time for designing....