Cool Sites For Idea Hunting

It is, of course, no secret at all that I am a big movie fan and draw a lot of my inspiration from everything Hollywood. Whether it’s a movie poster, trailer, TV spot, magazine ad or whatever. There’s a haven of ideas right before our eyes. All we have to do is stop and look around. So today I wanted to share with a few sites I have bookmarked and visit frequently to be inspired by great designs. The first one is the Apple Movie Trailer site. Yes, for those that don’t know this, there is a page on the Apple website that is nothing but the latest movies trailers in full HD. I visit this site every day. It has most of the latest trailers for movies in theaters or coming soon. You can even download them right to your computer. I have had many ideas come from this site.

The next one is a site called MoviePoster.com. This is basically a movie poster super store. The reason I like this site is because it not only carries the latest movies but they also have a huge selection of vintage posters from the past several decades. Even some of the originals that are hard to find. Check it out!

Another great source for movie inspired material is the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). This is perhaps one of my most favorite sites. Not just for the visuals but for the vast amount of information for virtually everything entertainment. Got a troubling movie or TV question? Chances are the answer can be found here.

Now one more site I think is worth mentioning is not a movie related site but a cool place to seek out some ideas. It is called CoolHomePages.com. This is just a gallery collection of really cool websites form around the world. They are very easy to navigate by category. Whether you are looking for clean designs, flash sites, e-commerce sites, self promo, etc. In fact, I had a personal website a few years ago that was inspired by a site I saw on on this site. Definitely worth a look!

Again, I suggest these sites as a means of inspiration, not to plagiarize. They way I look for ideas is to break individual elements down and use them in a way that caters to what my personal goal may be. I will often try to mimic and exact effect to merely figure out the technique so I can relay in my tutorials. Once the technique is mastered, then you can rework it to your liking. This is often the misconception about a lot of tutorials. For instance, you may have watched a tutorial on how to create a fire effect for a movie poster. Well chances are most of are not going to be creating a movie poster. That doesn’t mean the technique therein is useless. Learn the technique then cater it to your work. Most of the time the tutorial is just a vehicle for the technique.

Well that’s it for now. I hope this inspires you to put on your Photoshop goggles and perhaps see things a little differently. Like I said, there’s a world of ideas out there, all you have to do is stop and look around. If you have any sites that you frequently visit that inspire you we would love to hear about them. If so, post a comment here with a link.