The article contains some great interviews with some of Ireland’s top designers, some info about what’s happening across the island and a showcase of some top notch websites.

Read the full article here.

p.s. sorry if none of your sites are featured – don’t take it personally, there are only so many I can fit in.

Submit your site to WebDesignire so I can feature it next time

Creative packaging shows a good reflection on the brand it represents. My first real appreciation of packaging was opening my first Apple product, which was an iPod Touch. The perfectly crafted box and minimalism is reflected throughout the Apple brand, including their website. Some even go as far as to film themselves unboxing Apple products as it is such an enjoyable experience.

Drawing inspiration from packaging design can inspire new ideas and different approaches for your next project. Check out these great examples.

Route 29

Boxed Water

ITO EN Loose Leaf Tea

Skin

Coca Cola

Clover Farmstead Butter

Good Little Sausages

Tasty Bone

Incase

Monopoly

100% Chocoloate Cafe

Pot Of

Doo

Coop Norden

Other sources of packaging inspiration

• Beautiful and expressive packaging design
• Packaging design inspiration
• Creative coffee packaging
• 100 minimal and typographic package designs
• Lovely package

Further reading

• An introduction into packaging design

Is there any packaging in particular that you find inspiring?

I’ve put together a showcase of my favourite illustrated characters along with some further links for inspiration.

Silverback App

Mail Chimp

Fatburgr

Cyclops

Old Loft

Branded 07

The Alamo Basement

Freelance Switch

Veerle

Ellis Lab

Project Vino

Ryan O’Rourke

Schneeballschl8

Candy Cult

Spinen

What’s your favourite?

Further reading

• 45 Excellent examples of using character illustrations in web design
• 20 Sites with beautiful character illustrations
• 30 Creative examples of illustrations in web design

The post looks at 5 different styles of headers, showcasing 5 examples of each.

Read the full post here.

Let me know what you think and if there’s any other topics you’d like to see discussed in the future.

With the recent publication of the A List Apart Survey 2008, I thought it was a good opportunity to follow this up with another 25 great designers.

This year’s survey found that 16.2% of those surveyed (29,567 of A List Apart readers) were female. That’s a rise of 0.1%. So there’s not much improvement in regards to the amount of females in the industry, but I have came across 25 more great designs.

1. Irene Demetri

2. Joanna Klima

@thedarlingtree

3. Ilona Filipenkova

4. Lisa Moseley

@solairis

5. Suzy Johnston

@suzyjohnston

6. Shannon Farrell

@dolceshan

7. Jenna Smith

@JJenZz

8. Jina Bolton

@sushimonster

9. Selene M. Bowlby

@idesignstudios

10. Denise Wilton

11. Adelle Charles

@adellecharles

12. Kris Colvin

@KrisColvin

13. Kimberly Coles

@imwithsully

14. Stephanie Sullivan

@stefsull

15. Winnie Lim

16. Jen Gordon

17. Joanna

18. Wiehanne

19. Madeline D’Amato

20. Renee Rist

RibbonsofRed

21. Anna Pawełczyk

22. Allison Mills

@allimills

23. Manuela Hoffman

24. Mindy Wagner

@graphicsgirl

25. Drew Europeo

Further Reading

• 25 hot female web designers part 1

Who’s your favourite? Who else would you add to the list?

Check out this inspirational list of typographic based designs that I’ve put together.

1. Pallian Creative

2. Legistyles

3. Ben Lind

4. Made by Cool

5. Lorem Ipsum

6. Typechart

7. Elysium Burns

8. Crowley Webb

9. Alpha Multimedia

10. Astheria

11. The Typographic Desk Reference

12. Giant Creative

13. I Love Typography

14. FL2

15. Futon Media

Further reading

• 15 inspiring typography based blog designs
• 20 websites with beautiful typography

Any good ones I missed?

The post takes a look at what makes up a good charity website (who usually don’t have a large website budget) and showcases 20 good examples.

Read the full post here.

The research for this post was carried out while working on my own charity campaign Sponsor Lee.

Feedback appreciated.

The post takes a look at 10 things that make up a good personal portfolio site and showcases 40+ excellent and top class portfolios.

Read the full post here.

Let me know what you think and if there’s anything else you’d like covered.

Check out this list of 20 websites using these effects plus a few helpful tutorials.

1. 45royale

2. Skylar Anderson

3. Dale Anthony

4. Elite by Design

5. Fernando Sergio

6. Dorian Castro

7. 365 Days of Astronomy

8. Studio 7 Designs

9. Exceptional

10. Abduzeedo

11. Oakes Design

12. Brian Wilkins

13. Kitfolio

14. Rawkes

15. Evan Eckard

16. You Love Us

17. RJ Designz

18. Revyver Labs

19. Mail Chimp

20. Tennessee Winter

Tutorials

• Make an Aurora Borealis Design in Illustrator
• Awesome up your design with A.B.
• Really cool Eclipse Effect in Photoshop
• Making a realistic star field

Further Reading

• 25 websites with lighting effects

A few tips for designing your ’scape’

1. Get some stock photography

You can get lots of downloadable vector graphics and photos from iStockphoto.

2. Check out Flickr

Flickr has loads of Creative Commons photos available for use.

3. Take your own photos

Get out around your town/city and take a few photos of noticeable buildings.

4. Sketch your own ideas

Jot down your own hills and buildings on paper.

5. Finally, get tracing and cutting in Illustrator and Photoshop

Now you have your inspiration you can start tracing in illustrator and trying different Photoshop effects on your buildings to come up with the perfect amazing scape.

Check out the showcase below for inspiration from the best.

Showcase of cityscapes

1. Andy Sowards

2. Disability Heroes

3. Flayks

4. Gotta Get To FOWA

5. Carrot Creative

6. Sawyer Hollenshead

7. TJ Mapes

8. Bainbridge Studios

9. NY Moon

10. DrupalCon

Showcase of landscapes

11. The Mattinator

12. Kulturbanause

13. Hicks Design

14. Viget Inspire

15. Rissington Podcast

16. Adit Shukla

17. Vimeo

18. Koller Media

19. TwitterFone

20. Project Vino

Showcase of seascapes

21. Dizzain

22. Tomas Pojeta

23. We Are Not Freelancers

24. Frisk Design

25. David Torondel

26. Design Disease

27. Volll

28. Get Me Fast

29. Stylized Web

30. DivVoted

Further Reading

• Cityscapes group on Flickr
• Inspiring cityscapes
• Create spectacular concept art in Photoshop
• 55 vector landscapes