AgroKrag Graphic Design/Illustration, Web Design, Web Marketing

In a few weeks, I will be taking my 4th graphic design class as part of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s Graphic Design Certificate program  Thus far, the options for the electives that I am to choose from have been mostly the basics; Introduction to Adobe Illustrator, Introduction to Adobe Photoshop, Introduction to Web Design, Ptography, etc.  Which is great, but expected.  Finally, they switched it up this semester and added “Dynamic Web Design” to their program.  I have to say that I am very excited, as this class is discribed - “For students who want to create sophisticated, dynamic applications and Web sites. We will focus on designing and programming in Flash and will explore the power of combining Flash with JavaScript, XML (Extensible Markup Language), and PHP scripting language to create advanced Web applications that offer total design control and animation capabilities.”

Sounds challenging, but great to me.  Lack of time mixed with lack of self-motivation has enabled me from ever properly learning Flash, and as a Web Designer,  Dynamic Web Design seemed like the perfect class to  take next step.

What should I expect?  Does anyone have any insight or suggestions on the topic of Dynamic Web Design?

Since I started designing I have been leaning more towards illustrating the images used.  However, today, I decided that I would use an actual photo and see what I could come up with.  I’ve been stuck trying to figure out what the look and feel of SnapMyLife should be for months now.  Ideas have come and gone.  It is tricky designing much of anything when the product revolves around UGC, so I finally bit the bullet and just went for something fun.

This girl is just having fun, no more no less.  Ideally these would be the types of things people would send into the site, we encourage people to go out and try to capture the most interesting part of their day. It’s all about expressing yourself through your camera phone and having a good time while doing so.

The effects I used in Photoshop are nothing new to the avid users but I like to think that they have blended together fairly seemlessly.  Also the creation of custom brushes is one of the most important skills to learn as a photoshop user…and I just started doing it.  A lifesaver.

I’d love to hear some feedback on this one.

For most designers music plays an integral role in your daily work.  We all need it to keep us company mentally while we are glued to the screen all day.  The influence this practice has on us is simple to see when you step back and remember what you were listening to during the design of a particular piece.

I for one run into the issue of never knowing exaclty what I want to listen to so I just shuffle the iTunes and hope something good pops up.  This works only some of the time and really sort of distracts me.  So instead, lately, I have been choosing a full album and running with it during “concept” time.  The consistancy of one artist helps you focus and hone in on what you are trying to accomplish.

It is difficult to find great music that can inspire your designs, or at least strike up some ideas, so I want to leave this board open to suggestions and recommendations.

My contribution will be this:

Brad Sucks is an indie rock outfit that I know very little about, all I know is that the music itself puts me in a strangely creative state.  I’m not sure if this is attributable to the un-conventional nature of the music or just the sound of it.  Either way they are a nice find and I think they can help.

*Click on the image and you can download the entire album for free.

So….What inspires you??