My good friend Mitch Goldstein (or @mgoldst as you may know him) has asked if I'd give a talk to his graphic design students in a class he's teaching at Rhode Island College. I sat in those very halls a few too many years ago than I care to remember - but since that's where I got my start (designing and developing the College's first web site), it seemed like a great opportunity.

There have been some great posts on Twitter and around the web on whether or not web designers should know HTML/CSS and be able to produce their own designs. Elliot Jay Stocks and Mike Kus had some great tweets and blog posts about it and spoke very eloquently about it. I've always agreed with that perspective.

I've never tried to focus on writing what will get comments - I really want to write about what moves me. Which is why there honestly aren't all that many visitors to my site. (although it is growing, slowly) What I do find amusing is that while I've finally started getting some pariticipation on the site, my most frequent commenters are my son Trevor's friends from school. I'm flattered that Nick and others are reading the posts, but I do hope I can convince others to weigh in on some of the topics I've written about as well!

As a designer, I'm always thinking about inspiration. Where to find it, what to do with it, how to let it bring a solution out from the pile of ideas and pixels with which I work. I look at a lot of other designers' work - primarily in other arenas, but also on the web. But the strongest, most compelling source I've encountered is pervasive, and limitlessly renewable. I just have to remember to open my eyes and step through the door. It's something I cherish about how my brain seems to work, as it is with many creative people I imagine.