With this in mind, here are a few ways I find inspiration and a few tips on how to find your own inspiration.

I’ve recently gotten into the popular sharing site (and iPhone app) Pinterest in a big way. Pinterest has quickly become one of the most popular places for people to search for the things which inspire them, and to collect them all together in one place. For me, its usually ideas for my home and small garden but you can browse almost anything, all while checking your emails or playing online games at partycasino.com. When you find something online that you want to save for later, or share with your friends, family and the wider online community you can easily add this to one of your Pinterest boards which help you categorise your thoughts and inspirations. Pinterest is a really easy and effective way of collecting and sharing your inspiration.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t continue to be inspired by the world around you. Take a camera with you wherever you go to capture inspiring scenes on film - you never know when you might stumble across something that you want to remember. Don’t forget to be alert when flicking through magazines or relaxing with a film - these things can often prove to be great sources of inspiration too.

Lastly, don’t rush it. If you don’t immediately feel inspired, relax and give it time. You never know what might spark your creative instinct, and sometimes a little patience can be required.

Tumblr
I joined Tumblr a couple of weeks ago and I’ve found it a really cool way of quickly off-loading pictures and designs I see around the interwebs into an ‘inspiration’ stream. As such, it can sometimes be a bit random to anyone but me, but hopefully if you like what I do on this main blog, they’ll be something for you on the tumblr site too.
Tumblr

Google+
I’m cautiously trying out Google Plus for a while to see if I like it. The minute it gets as annoying as Facebook I’ll probably give up on it.

*Update*
My Google+ has died a death. I’m not sure what I didn’t like about it exactly, but it just seemed hard to find people with similar interests to add to my circles, and too difficult to find content that I wanted to share.

Feedburner
All my RSS feeds are now linked via Google’s Feedburner service:
All new design portfolio projects
This main blog that you’re reading right now
The Tumblr mentioned above

Twitter
Twitter remains the same as always: jamesmattison

Instagram
I’ve got into Instagram on the iPhone in quite a big way recently. If you’re using it, look me up on the username jamesmattison

Pinterest
I was really sceptical about Pinterest when I first looked into it, but I’ve been trying it out and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a nice counter point to Tumblr in that I can just add stuff for family, home and the ‘garden’ rather than being worried about it being design focused. Check out my Boards.

Facebook
I’m back on Facebook. To begin with it was so I could promote the A B Sea poster a bit more, but obviously to create a page for that I had to resurrect my personal page… So far I’ve managed to avoid any Farmville invites so all is well.

Check out the ‘making of’ video here

Music video for the band Danger Beach on Dream Damage Records.
Directed by Ned Wenlock.
Character animation by Rodney Selby.

Woo. Hoo. (and thanks to Colin for helping to solve the problem).

Thanks to this article by The Good Lab you no longer have to wait for all my blog posts to load when you first arrive at the blog section. They now load, five at a time, as you get close to the bottom of the page.

Magic.

Fortis Pilot Professional Day/Date on black leather strap

A very clean and simple aviatior-style watch from Swiss watchmaker Fortis. Click here for a very detailed review of the watch.

My watch was bought new in 2008 from official Fortis dealer, Ahmed Siddiqui & Sons, Dubai. It has been worn a handful of times, the rest of the time its kept in it’s box and is in perfect (mint) condition.

The watch comes with its original box and paperwork.

Accepting offers in the region of £350 Sterling + Postage from Dubai

Further details and larger images are available upon request. Serious enquiries only to watch@jamesmattison.co.uk

Download the job description here or contact careers@growqatar.com for more details.

For an up-to-date list of careers at Grow, visit the Contact Us section of their website.

in a tranquil forest, a single wooden ball rolls down a stepped wooden ramp, continuously, for two minutes. At each step, it falls and strikes a wooden bar tuned to play a single note of the 10th movement of Bach’s Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147, commonly known by its English title, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

For me this is even better than Honda’s famous ‘The Cog’ advertisement

Via Make: Online

ElephantTalk is a “supplier of choice of all telecommunications and content services for the B-2-B customer.” My approach was to access the brand name, and dive into the primitive and notable shapes that represent the name. After sketching simple elephant shapes I noticed a similarity between the elephant head and the quotation mark. Once this similarity was found I began to create a shape that worked as both an elephant head and a quotation. The heads face to represent a communication factor, and I chose lively colors to help the logo stand out as well as bring a contemporary aesthetic.

My only tiny ‘quibble’ would be the clashing lowercase ‘t’s in the centre of the wordmark, can’t help thinking that retaining the original title case styling, or working on a tidy little ligature, would have made this perfect.

Colins (rather minimal) website here

Via Brand New Classroom

Senior Designer

We’re looking for an experienced designer to join our team. The successful candidate will head up our design team and work across our portfolio of magazines, which includes monthly luxury travel, lifestyle and home titles, as well as guides and supplements. They must have at least two years’ experience of working on magazines, have exceptional organisational skills and be able to bring the best out of those on their team.

The role includes a tax-free salary and subsidised hotel accommodation for the first month of employment in Dubai. Please email your CV, a covering letter which outlines your suitability for the position, and examples from your portfolio to john@hotmediapublishing.com

via FormFiftyFive

Job Title: Creative Director
Company: grow
Location: Doha - Qatar
Field: Advertising/branding/design/digital
Job Functions: Art direction, branding and corporate Identity, creative direction, design, design management, web design

Description
Creative Director for one of Qatar’s most creative independent advertising and design agencies focused on brands.

 Minimum 10 years experience.

Refreshingly creative, clever thinker, business mind. Great all-rounder. Bring great ideas to life, on brand and on budget.

At grow we believe “growing your brand is growing your business”.

 We’re into our 6th year, creating distinctive brands and communications for our clients primarily in education, hospitality, medical, real estate and financial services. We’re planning to open other grow offices in the region, (think travel) and exploring the digital world of iPhone apps and mobile marketing.


We’re looking for a talented, commercially astute Creative Director to lead grow into the next phase of our development and to inspire and motivate our small but enthusiastic team of designers. We need someone to lead and contribute to winning awards, increasing our client base and expand into new business areas.

Ideally you’re a great team leader and creative inspiration.

 A great all-rounder with experience in advertising, branding and digital. A thorough understanding of brand strategy and development, advertising campaigns and experience of digital media. You’ve got managerial and leadership skills to inspire and direct senior and junior designers, keeping them motivated and keen, while producing outstanding work, on time and on budget.

You have passionate and articulate client presentation skills to partner with the Managing Director and client services team to present the creative rationale for design directions.

Finally, a knowledge of production and print is essential, as is intricate attention to detail and an ability to run the creative and delivery process.

Above all, you really want to come to Qatar and live to be part of this huge growth story and really make your creative mark by helping grow to blossom and prosper.

Have a look at our website: http://www.growqatar.com

Nutshell:
The creative director has more opportunity than most to make a difference:
• Directly influence a creative team and interact with management;
• Lift up and maintain the creative team spirit and potential;
• Create award-winning work;
• Foster an atmosphere that is harmonious and engender positive team spirit;
• Develop and implement structured systems and processes that work and are efficient and productive.
• Raise our potential and capacity for delivering outstanding work;
• Positively influence and contribute to grow’s expansion and success.
• Have a great sense of humour that is contagious.
• Be a really nice person who adds value in many, many ways.

We’re talented, we’re committed and we’re producing powerful, outstanding work for some of Qatar’s leading companies as well as International names. If you CAN do it all, then send us your résumé and PDF portfolio with a letter telling us why we should employ you.

Specific Skills
• BFA (or equivalent experience) in design with a minimum of 8-10+ years experience in corporate identity and brand development, ATL, BTL and TTL advertising.


• Creative excellence, expert in print production, web creative management, TVC and video, art direction, magazine design and layout. 


• Preferably an Award-winner as our creative standards are very high
• You know Mac design programs. Problem solver. Accountable. Lead a creative team.
• Understand and organise your team to meet strict timelines and budgets.
• Conceptualize, plan, design, and produce a wide range of graphic design and advertising material against the set strategic brief.
• 

Be passionate about our company, embrace our philosophy, join us for the next phase of meteoric growth, above all, be grounded and have a great sense of humour!

In short, you have to be able to do it all - design, manage, direct and present.

A true talented all-rounder.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you. Email anthony@growqatar.com

Received via email

Photo: The Sartorialist

Rounded Point Collars: An Academic History
Men’s dress shirts featuring rounded point collars are a great example of male emulation for the sake of stylish men’s image. The rounded collar was part of Eton College’s dress code beginning in the mid-1800s. Because men wanted to be perceived as belonging to this exclusive club, the rounded, or “club” collar was copied by the masses. Today it is rarely seen even on the most stylish of men, but it remains a classic of men’s style

Face Types and Proportion for a Rounded Dress Shirt Collar
A club collar looks best on thin faces. The softness of the points counteracts sharp verticality created by thinness in a face. Round-faced men should skip the club collar because the curved lines will pronounce a round face’s roundness, an undesirable effect which is easily averted. Also, because these collars are mostly seen on bespoke shirts, make sure the tailor understands that you want your collar in proportion. If you have a slightly longer neck, you will want a slightly longer collar. The rounded collar is naturally shorter, so a man’s long neck will look especially long if his collar is not in proportion.

Pinning a Rounded Collar
The club collar is one of the most popular dress shirt collars to pin. A collar pin sits under the necktie, holding down the collar points and pushing the necktie knot up and out. Because of the club collar’s shortness, pinning will also help keep the collar points flat on the shirt. Matched with a custom suit, the look will be classic, different, and individual.

If the Collar Works for You, Wear It
Men may naturally be shy about wearing a rounded collar shirt because they haven’t seen anyone wear them before. You needn’t be shy, gentlemen. If your face is right for the club collar, go for it. A man who wears a rounded collar is going to get second glances, and that’s okay. Wear it with a collar pin, and you’ll definitely get noticed by people who didn’t notice you before. Rounded collars are an excellent choice for a well-dressed man’s wardrobe.

via Google Knol

Its (Mathaf’s) identity is almost wholly expressed through typography, and attention has clearly been lavished in this area. As someone with little to no expertise in Arabic typography, I’ll refrain from making too many comments on that aspect, other than to say this is probably one of the more pleasing English / Arabic double version logo I have seen to date.

Read the entire review here

Via Brand New

This photo popped up in my Google Reader last week and there’s something about it that I keep going back to.

I wish I knew more about it and who took it but all I can tell you is that it was featured on the website/blog ‘Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe’ which I discovered after Iain Claridge mentioned it on his own wonderful blog.

Available from Polite Shop for just one English pound each, bargain.

Via SwissMiss

Love the triplex business cards.

When I first saw the photographs I assumed it was very carefully done thermographic print to get the raised, glossy effect but on closer inspection what they’ve done is used a gloss black foil over an emboss. This gives a much cleaner and easier to control finish.

Nice website too

Via Artful Conception

This strikingly beautiful building for BMCE (Banque Marocaine du Commerce Exterieur) has recently opened in Rabat, Morocco and is the first project to be completed in Africa by London-based architects Foster + Partners.

Lord Foster commented:

“The BMCE flagship branches – our first completed buildings in Africa – reinterpret elements of traditional Moroccan architecture, combining these with a contemporary interior that reflects the Bank’s progressive approach to its customers. This blend of ancient principles and modern technology is also reflected in an energy efficient design. The result is a series of buildings that are sustainable and each one, uniquely, of its place.”

Photography: Nigel Young
Architecture: Foster + Partners

Via ArchDaily

Originally published in 1972, 2011: Living in the Future has just been re-released so that we can check how accurate author Geoffrey Hoyle’s predictions were. I’m already in love with those Mr Benn style illustrations!

Available at Laughing Elephant Books and Amazon

Via Grain Edit

1. Goruck GR1

Images courtesy of A Continuous Lean

2. Triple Aught Design Dispatch Bag

Via Acquire

3. Killspencer Weekender Bag

More information at A Continuous Lean