Web Design Process–Finding Inspiration for Personal Website: Built By Hand Ep 2

In this second episode of Built By Hand, Ben's mission is to do creative research for his personal website. He'll be collecting references and resources from other designer's work with a two-part goal: to get inspired and figure out the visual direction for his website. Does the process of research and inspiration that he's refined over the past decade apply to a personal website? Do the same tactics work? How hard is it to find inspiration for your personal brand if you're better at creating from a position of empathy.

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Host: Chris Do
Producers: Mark Contreras / Ricky Lucas
Cinematographers/Editors: Stewart Schuster, Ricky Lucas, Jona Garcia
Social Team: Elle Money
Typefaces: Futura, DIN, Helvetica Now, Calibre, Knockout, Champion Gothic

[FluxAcademy]

Ben is a superstar. Seeing his development as a presenter is just amazing. Fantastic work!

[Burritosarebetterthantacos]

Im not a designer but I am building my own small town production company. I cant believe content of this value is free. I cant imagine how dope your branding is when it gets your full attention.

[siddhantjain]

Hey Ben, this series is close to me heart as we recently re-designed our company's website and faced all these hurdles you are looking at.

Our Inspirations:
1. Dribbble
2. Pinterest
3. Awwwards

How we laid out the moodboard:

Initially we created a huge moodboard and gave ourselves 3 days off to refresh our creative engine. After that we looked in the moodboard as a whole and picked out designs which struck out. After that we categorized them by similarities and we were able to find 4-5 micro patterns which we really liked and ultimately came into our final design.

For typography:

The purpose of our site was to (a) Represent our brand and work (b) To generate traffic through content like Blogs etc.

As you can imagine readability was important so we looked at several popular sites like Medium, Facebook, Reddit, Slack etc and which types they are using. This gave us enough information to filter out fonts and find a suitable one.

I will share the link of our completed site once it is live. Would love your feedback!

[jasonsteves]

You're very likeable and your honesty makes it even more fun!

[muhaiminzulkarnain]

This series deserves to go viral and get millions of views. Just for bringing so much value to people for free.

[comicalfoods]

Hi Ben! Thank you for sharing your process!

For website design I like to research by looking:

1. Inside my community. I love to see how my peers, friends, heroes, and competitors have designed their websites. If we know each other I also have the chance to ask them questions.
2. Google Search. I'll type in specific keywords and look for collections or "best ____" or "unique____" to get some quick inspiration.
3. Social Media. (Twitter & Instagram) This is more of a passive approach where I screenshot images I love but when I do want to look for something specific I use hashtags to go find it especially now since everyone is sharing carousels full of tips and tricks on so many different topics.

[outoflineproductions]

The playlist for this on thefutur YouTube homepage only has episodes 1, 2, and 5 listed. I watched them all and loved it but let’s get that playlist updated! Great work Ben!

[ciand]

Loved this - research can be the most intimidating process of starting new design. Almost like you’re in a revolving door going around in circles not knowing when is a good time to exit. To your point about museums - I love picking up a museum’s exhibition catalog when i visit. Instead of taking pictures while i am there, the catalog allows me to archive the inspiration.

[maldukvlahovic]

I was excited enough to see Ben work on his website's creative process, but when Hrvoje popped up out of nowhere I started to scream. Not only is he by far my favorite web designer but also a design director in my dream company. I'm really excited to see the result of these series since I know how capable Ben is and the amount of masters of their field that jumped in to help out. But alright, I'll stop fangirling and get back to my coffee now. Much love from Croatia.

[designerbhosle]

Explaining the whole process of a website is the best idea for learners like me. Thank You for giving your time. Waiting for a new one :)

[oliviamurray]

I am loving this series, this is exactly what I'm looking to re do for my own website. One thing that is refreshing to hear is that you also can feel overwhelmed after the research stage, this is something I struggle with!

[MyDustyBooks]

Pinterest and Google Images are great sources for inspo. But I'm an inspiration collector. So, whenever I come across interesting things I screenshot, pin, or save them. As a writer, I draw on music, song lyrics, pull quotes, and poetry for inspiration. Movies and TV shows in particular.

Because of how I'm wired, I also collect moments, like the sound of waves at midnight when X is happening vs that same sound when y is happening or how the textures of the ground feel beneath my feet from different surfaces. Those feelings and experiences etched in my memory are reference points when I'm writing or when I'm speaking to a client during a strategy session. This might seem odd, but it works for me.

[samtobin]

The concept of collecting inspiration and ideas sounds like the concept of “Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte. It’s a real game changer. Highly recommend the book

[thesaralkumar]

I love how the application of the processes mentioned is not only limited to personal website design or website design, it can be applied to every project. Quality of a good content. 🙌 thank you the futur and Mr.Burns.

[marcod.]

Mr Ben, kudos for the video and the upcoming series. I really love your contents and I also think that is because of you, yes you strike me like a very positive and interesting person to know before a great designer and all the things you do and are.
Really apprecieate your work and your umanity.
Cheers from Italy!

[kenyangrafik]

That pause at the start... 😁 You just had to like!!! Good job Ben!

[jeshaiahbretz]

I think there's a lot of us that can relate to that level of inspiration and strategy that we put into client projects vs our own branding. There's a bunch of great learning opportunities that touch on the subject scattered all over this series so far. I always enjoy the raw energy of excitement and passion that you bring in each video too. Thanks for sharing your journey with us Ben, you bring the good vibes

[julio.a.arango]

Watching this video and all your videos is an essential part of my daily research process!!

[tracywinkler]

What an great video and I have enjoyed discovering The Futur several weeks ago and I am addicted to it now! This process and the struggles I am the business & marketing strategist. Sales and consulting and contracted with small agencies and i love to get involved
With the process as the front line and to relay back to my creative team as well as understand what goes into it all and the levels of design. I am always thinking seo and call to action as well as good user experience. This is Terrific and allows me to bring out my creative
Side

[TyrannosaurusTroy]

This is so inspiring, thank you for taking us along for the journey! What you said about the back and forth discovery process with a client being your jam is EXTREMELY relatable. As creative professionals, many people assume if we're this good at client work we must love creating for ourselves even more (no rules! no deadlines!). But like you, I find designing for myself to be my single biggest challenge. We're all blind to ourselves to some degree, but for those of us who excel at discovering what others need, the flip side is that we usually don't have a strong, overbearing sense of what WE need—that's why we're able to serve others so well. But it's definitely worth the effort to dig deeper and give ourselves space to explore and rediscover our own voices like you're doing here.