I’m going to write about a very obvious inspiration, which is Tim Van Damme’s site:timvandamme.com. This site very obviously has design cues taken from Apple’s design style, yet it feels it’s own some how. Rarely do I see a site and am compelled to design based off of that inspiration. It takes something special, something I’m not even sure of the recipe for, yet something I love to spark me to model one of my own creations based off of that creation. Tim’s site did that for me. I loved the simplicity and single focusedness of this site. I love that it serves one purpose. I love that it is clear and direct. I love that it is beautiful.
RogieKing.com
It is because of this site that I swiftly began construction of my very own site: http://rogieking.com. I think that you will notice the very obvious similarities, yet the ways that I made it my own. I hoped by making this site that I would honor the person whom I was inspired by, yet not dishonor him with blatant rip-offery (if that’s a word ;), and I appear to have honored him by this sentiment he echoed on twitter:
This is what I call inspiration: http://rogieking.com/ Looks great!
Tim Van Damme – link
I have been Working on my own personal site, Seeing yours gives me a bunch of new ideas, and really makes me want to scrap my current design and start over. Very nice looking site. clean and fast.
@Tyler Awesome. I hope that others can be in turn inspired by me, as it seems I have done to an extent. Take what you see here and build on it and make it your own.
We can all grow and change because of our affect on each other.
A few weeks ago I found TimVanDamme.com (likely via Twittering) and had the same feelings you did. It’ clearly Apple-ish yet seems distinctly new.
I like that you maintained Tim’s utility while bringing the Rogie style. Inspiration well-placed indeed.
Nice design man. I really liked it. Specially the avatar icon hover effect. Good stuff!
@Tyler: I wish I could stop seeing such awesomeness every other day because it is delaying *my* portfolio redesign. Amazing, simply amazing.
I had a couple of people emailing me telling they found yet another rip-off of my site. They couldn’t have been more wrong. You didn’t copy one pixel, nor one line of code. That’s what inspiration is: Taking an idea, and making it your own. Congrats on the design, it looks finger-licking good! I also love how you combined it with the style from this website.
“That’s what inspiration is: Taking an idea, and making it your own.”
true, true words.
Both design are excellent. Wish I was inspiration to someone sometime in future.
@Tim Van Damme – People get a bit jumpy about this. After I was inspired by your site, I intentionally told people that I was inspired by it when showing them my mockups. There were a few times when a friend would input:
That would then give me creative direction to take my design in a different direction.
Once again, thanks for the great work Tim. Cheers!
Started making a website like these two immediately after seeing Tim’s great website but didn’t had the time to finish it yet.
Also felt a bit guilty for taking Tim’s cool concept but it’s the nature of good ideas to become adopted and a source of inspiration. It’s like Tim invented the concept of a car here and made a Lamborghini out of it while you took the same concept and made a Ferrari out of it.
And finally congrats to you both for having such short names so your URLs aren’t that long ;-)
@kremalicious – Word brother. A Ferrari with a smooth metal and wood interior ;)
Certain ideas are so basic that I don’t think one person can claim them. It’s entirely possible that multiple people could’ve (or did) come up with this simple, elegant idea concurrently. Of course, that’s not what happened here. Both are similar (in IA, essentially) but completely different (in design and personality). Both are equally well-done. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
Funny, this site (Komodo Media) actually gave me inspiration for the redesign of my own site… Anyways, Tim’s site looks great, as well as yours… I love the simplicity, and the excellent use of javascript to get between pages. The effect is great!
This is a great idea, i like very much.
You have a good inspirational things.
Great Idea!
Really Nice man its a good Idea
this is a great idea. Now that I have a company website (http://interactiveblend.com), I think my personal site should be simpler like yours.
Were you inspired to create a site like this because of mobile browsing? looks like it serves that purpose perfectly….