One of my most favorite quotes is by George Bernard Shaw. It displays my motivation why I contribute to the web.
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
And just imagine what could happen if we all share our ideas with each other…
Exchange and sharing are two of the most important aspects within blogs. And there are several people who are constantly giving me inspiration. Basically better taste than sorry would not be the same without these people. And I want to take the chance to feature them right here. (the listening doesn’t follow any rule or special order, just like it came into my mind)
I can't remember when I first started to consume notcot. It all started with the collaborative inspiration source notcot.org. Jean Aw(@notcot) is the power behind the notcot empire. She always proves taste when she writes about hotels she just visited or products she tested.
Michael Surtees (@michaelsurtees) is a creative and inspirational genius from NY. I first stumbled upon his design notes in his weblog (now Design Noted) and realized that he has so much more to give. Because of him I am attending the project walkingtoworktoday.
Public School (@go2publicschool) is a creative collective which consists of 3 photographers, 4 designers, 1 illustrator, and 3 dogs. They all (besides the dogs) work in a beautiful workspace in Austin, Texas. I started to get inspired by their work a while ago, I can't even remember when it started. The stuff they present on their website is an awesome collection of design, art and other visual inspirations. They even create their own mixtapes which are also very well chosen.
Tina Roth Eisenberg is Swissmiss. She is originally from Switzerland and now living and working in NY. She also has several projects going on besides her weblog, like the to-do app TeuxDeux or CreativeMornings. But espacially on twitter Swissmisss is a creative source for any kind of things related to design.
Talking about highly inspiring sources on twitter, Brainpickings is indispensable. But Maria Popova also gets deeper into the topics on her weblog. "Mostly, Brain Pickings is about ideas — revolutionary new ideas that no one has seen or thought of before, and old ideas that most have seen, but no one has thought of in this way before." As you can see, brainpickings is very similar to better taste than sorry.
Now, the third american female deisgn source, Kirstin Butler is also from NY. Her website is currently under development but you should follow her, her taste and selection is also very inspirational.
Clemens Poloczek (@ignantblog) is curating the high class inspiration at iGNANT. But besides writing about art, design, photography and typography, Clemes also has some great projects within his blog. There is the series Behind the Blog where he presents some interesting blogs with a bunch of questions and a photo of their workspace. Then there is iGNANT.TV, where Clemens shows portraits about extraordinary artists and projects. All videos are self produced. And the newest project is Monifactory, a collaboration with the artist Monja Gentschow. Once a week they present a piece of Monja's sketchbook, so you can get an insight into the process of an art production.
Christoph Boeken (@JerikoOne) is the man behind Jeriko, a photo blog with high quality. His weblog displays his good taste. A very precisely designed weblog. His selection of photographs and the converdations on his weblog are always worth a visit.
Johannes and me, we have several things in common, we like food, we like music and we are seeking for inspiration and good ideas. That's why I have a constant exchange with him through several services, like twitter, his weblog or his posterous.
Igor Schwarzmann (@zeigor) is a creative and inspirational source with a diverse cultural background. But he is not only a thinker, he is also a maker. In his weblog WIREDVANITY Igor reflects about his thoughts, ideas and personal experiences. You can find smaller inputs in his posterous. One of the projects he is currently working on with Johannes Cleske, Peter Bihr and two other guys is Cognitive Cities, a "collective brain about urban developments".
I met Kai Müller (@stylespion) early 2009 and by now I can call him a friend. It is always a pleasure to talk to him. We share a lot of passion. He loves good design, photography, food and music. So basically the same like me. Most people know him under the name StyleSpion, which is also the name of his weblog. His blog was one of the first I started to follow continuously, I liked and still like the topics and the personal touch of StyleSpion. Kai is currently planning his project Sonic Iceland where he combines both of his biggest passions photography and music.
Finally a cool online magazine about contemporary culture started in Germany. There are several, but the project i-ref (@irefmag) of Isabelle Pohl and Norman Röhlig is totally my style. In the main focus are the projects and their creators. The main topics are music, art and design - contempary culture. I like their presentation of people, like the interviews REFlection. There are also several other writers like Clemens of iGNANT, who are supporting Isabelle and Norman and in order to widen their views. Be sure to watch the trailer which explains i-ref and you will see it's about the people. What are you referring to?
UARRR is the weblog of Marcel Wichmann (@uarrr). He likes painting and sketching, music and shouting out his opinion into the world. Most of the time he ignites big discussions within his comments. Espacially since he has a new blog layout, where he designs every single blog post in a special way, his blog is on my daily list to get inspiration. But besides his blog he realizes some great projects.
Martin Wolf @visualthoughts is a dedicated hobby photographer from Hamburg. Within his photo blog he presents his own work, his inspiration sources and also interviews with other photographers. You can also check out his potential at flickr.
Jan Oelze (@janoelze) speaks electro spanish (Elektrospanier). I don't exactly know what that means. But anyways this guy has a lot of crazy ideas and realizes them in order to create freaky projects. Jan helps me a lot with coding and stuff. You should definetly check out his projects.
Yeah Sara (@_yeahsara) sure knows how to talk and write (and tweet). On her private blog dragstripGirl she writes about life, compelling stories or funny anecdotes, her writings are always entertaining. Just recently she started another project, called finding berlin, where Sara writes about her beloved Berlin. If you ever make a trip to Berlin be sure to check it out. Or if you live in Berlin check it as well to see if you can find something new, inside or outside of Berlin.
