| The internet is full of great websites and huge talents (take a look at Sang Han's interview) and when we're starting a career as a webdesigner we really need somewhere to grab ourselves since everything is always changing. I remember that four years ago, to find great designers and amazing websites we had to jump to SURFSTATION, K10K and PIXELSURGEON (Heil to King Arber) to find them. Those were great times, you could not find anything cooler anywhere on the web, until WEB DESIGN INDEX came to life and started the strange work of indexing websites by colours and now by content too. These amazing magazines that we refered too (huge source of inspiration for us) were the only place to find trends. You just had to be slightly observers to check what the hype of the moment was. Now everything has changed a bit, websites like CSS Mania, CSS Impress, Screenalicious and Screenfluent offer you the same thing that magazines do but without a single word about it. They seem to choose something for some reason like W3C full approval on CSS/ HTML and XHTML and outstanding designs as they like to mention it and then... PUFF there they are to inspire people. It's a strange new thing but...
If you're an interested designer and you prefer to work hard than being cool (which is quite stupid BTW) than you know that study, as in the words of Bruce Mau, is fundamental to evolve as a designer. If you have your studio, than you must study as it is implied. So how can you study trends? It's quite simple, index them for you too and keep your interests in mind. Choose websites to index based on colour schemes, based on type, based on effects that photoshop creates easily and Paintshop Pro need gymnastic to do them. By creating your own index, you'll get the chance to study what works and what does not work. Try to copy designs, try to repeat effects, learn grids and do not code in PHP or CSS. If you are a designer, you are not a programmer. I personally repeat this quite often to programmers I work with, their concerns on design issues are always short viewed and they lack study, they are the ones who follow the trends most because type, photocompositions and graphic design grids are unknown to them.
So find a dude to help you with the programming and concentrate on design. Learn stuff to be aware of them but do not be a slave of technology.
Most than anything, you have to ask yourself how do you want to be known, like the designer who creates amazing stuff for himself or the one that creates value for the client?
In last century 50's when being a professional designer emerged (in the USA) we were known as Commercial Artists. Commercial was the word that did not fit but artist was forgotten and in some words describes the best a designer does, understands a client's need and express it with creative talent for a commercial purpose. So following trends and wanting to print them in everything you create, is cool, but then again, cool is stupid. One of the worst things it can happen to you is being in a meeting with the staff of your local Shoe company, present them a NIKE alike Ground Breaking Design website and your client simply do not liking it because it does not stand for what the company is. So, as a designer you have the moral duty of creating the best for your clients, so study them with a complete TARGET MARKETING SHEET, understand it's needs, jump to your indexed websites and play and have fun creating with the client's target in mind.
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