As many of you may know, my wife Meredith, is not only a prolific blogger and fantastic mother, she also designs jewellery and sells it both in Perth galleries as well as online via Etsy.

Recently, she started going under the moniker of her new label, Captain Oh Captain, and combined her fascination in old sea tales of yesteryear and her joy of creating necklaces and other jewellery.

So this post is a thinly disguised excuse to promote her great work, and link to her site as well as throw a big mention to MOO and their great MOO Minicards (as shown above).

Embrace great design – go forth and buy some great Australian jewellery and then some nifty Moo Minicards!

Image: MOO Minicards for Captain Oh Captain.

If you are like most designers, sometimes it seems just hard to get started every day, chock full of fresh design ideas, without falling into a designer rut of producing the same look over and over.

We’re lucky as web designers, that there are a stack of resources at hand, on the web, that can help us overcome these moments. Here’s fifty websites that I know of.

My top five most visited:

• Design Interact
• Cool Homepages
• Linkd Up
• StyleGala
• CSS Zen Garden

More gallery style sites to point your eyes towards (in no particular order):

• CSS Import
• Unmatched Style
• Absorb (New Zealand)
• CSS Vault
• Inspiration King
• W3C Sites
• Design Shack
• CSS Drive
• The Best Designs
• Style Boost
• CSS Remix
• Darkeye
• Design Snack
• Web Creme
• Res72
• Pagina In Valida (brasil)
• Kaliber10000
• Digital Thread
• Cool Websites
• Plastic Pilots
• Screen Spire
• Best Web Gallery
• CSS Beauty
• Digital Refueler
• CSS Bloom
• May 1 Reboot (annual event)
• CSS Heaven
• Be Inspired (in Russian)
• CSS Love
• HOW Design

…and some designer magazines:

• Net Diver
• Lounge72
• Style Gala
• A List Apart (design and development)

Then there’s a few design ‘portals’:

• AustralianINFront (Australian)
• Design is Kinky
• Pixel Surgeon
• computer love
• 5oup (for students)

And finally, some design forums to finish off the list:

• Designers Talk
• YayHooray!
• Port80 forums (OK, so I am biased)
• AustralianINFront forums
• SitePoint forums
• forums4designers

Now, if you spend 15 minutes every morning visiting just some random offerings from the list above, I guarantee you’ll refresh your inspiration. Good luck and great designing!

Image: Motel, Swan View, WA.

My most popular post from a while ago, which included the Web2.0 Colour Palette, was all in jest however it also hinted on something I used to do when I spent most of my time designing for web and print.

I have been known to scan leaves and plants, and photograph interesting colours and colour combinations in nature and packaging and my surroundings, in order to use them in my print and website designs.

Well, I took over a hundred photographs of graffiti along a wall which runs next to Tonkin Highway, Perth today, and thought what a great subject to do some colour analysis.

So, with little fanfare, fresh off the walls of Perth, here are the Colours of Graffiti 2006, a 43kb JPG file with approximately 70 colours to get your creative juices flowing. Let me know if you use it for a design, I’d be keen to see the end result!

Image: Spraycan in front of Graffiti, Perth, WA.