It’s been a while. The holidays were great, with lots of time away from the computer, just checking email and some occasional Twitterring. I even started pondering about the future of this blog, but not in a blogger fatigue kind of way.

One thing lead to another and a redesign was born. The “Fresh Grid” theme is less cluttered, with no rounded corner clichés. The focus is now on the content (expect more in-depth in articles), with lots of white space and serif fonts for enjoyable reading (and printing). The homepage was trimmed to only display the latest post and a featured Site and Video of the Week.

Oh, and of course, if you haven’t noticed my avatars this previous week, there’s also a new logo (above), more appropriate to “A Source Of Inspiration”. Enough of the Web2.0 look.

The new Lifestream page

There’s a lot more focus on social media, with a Twitter sidebar and a new Lifestream page, with a quick overview of what’s inspiring me in several web services. That also means the huge blogroll footer is now history, with featured websites getting a one week homepage promotion. So it’s a great chance to send your websites/campaigns/portfolios and have them showcased.

And while changing this whole thing, there’s also an updates RSS feed at http://feedproxy.google.com/ASourceOfInspiration. The previous one should still work, but with the whole Feedburner transition to Google came just in time to include in the redesign.

No technical hiccups are expected with this redesign, but i’d love to hear your thoughts about the new A Source Of Inspiration.. Hope you like it.

For those times you need a visual brainstorm:

• The FWA

  (Favourite Website Awards)

  
  Awarding sites since 2000, it’s probably the most famous web design gallery of them all. Created by Rob Ford, it features the ribbon-famous SOTD (Site of the Day), Site of the Month, People’s Choice Award and the most coveted Site Of The Year. It is now a full feature web publication, with interviews, articles and even a video channel at FWATheater.

• CSS Mania

  
  Probably the biggest CSS web gallery, with over 11000 entries. Tip: if you’re looking for references on a particular industry, just browse the topics.

• DarkEye


With impressive metadata features, we can search at Dark-i by color or keyword. If you’re a web designer, you’re encouraged to create a gallery and promote your work.

• NetDiver

  
  More a webzine than a gallery, but covering trend categories such as Flashware, Imaginative or Powagirrrls.

• StyleGala

  
  It used to have the best selection of all CSS galleries, but now it’s rarely updated. Nonetheless, you can find there all the CSS classics, from Jason SantaMaria to Marius Roosendal.

• Best Web Gallery

  
  Maybe not the best, but it sure is one of the most crafted ones, with a quite useful thumbnail preview on each selected website, and comments on each entry.

• Design Charts

  
  Not truly a gallery, and not always about webdesign, but always with the hottest new work

• Webcreme

  
  Covering both CSS and Flash web design, it’s one of my favourites, thanks to the the clean layout and RSS with thumbnails.

• Straightline

  
  The new kid on the block, from Japan

• Daily Slurp

  
  The companion gallery to Design Meltdown, a blog discussing themes and trends on webdesign. Both websites are managed by Patrick McNeil that has just published his new book, The Web Designer’s Idea Book.

Or as Wired puts it, Pitchfork.tv Takes a Stab at Music Videos.

For long have i’ve been a regular reader of Pitchfork, along with last.fm, Hype machine,MetaCritic and ubber-cool Stereogum, that nurtured my musical tastes, while bypassing traditional music media moguls like MTV or NME.
Even in Portugal i’m a regular at remixtures, Palco Principal or Bodyspace, great web projects that help me keep up to date with Portugal’s music scene.

Pitchfork and other web based projects are taking a real dent in TV music channels, with loyal fans and delivering breaking news. Pitchfork has even achieved a successful spin-off, with their Chicago Pitchfork Music Festival.

Take for instance Stereogum, who has just released a tribute disk to download, honoring Post, the 10 year old record by Bjork, something possible thanks to the loyalty of both fans and artists to the music weblog. Not to mention other major online players like MySpace, that has just closed the circle with a deal to sell DRM-free music, further establishing the site as a social music destiny.

Even if Pitchfork got a bit too pretentious on their Wired interview, tomorrow we get the chance to review the video quality and the whole interactive experience, but if they keep faithful to their overall excellence, i bet this one will be one more nail in the coffin in traditional music business.

Images Credits: Pitchfork

A website that gets a band like Radiohead to premiere their video service, premieres exclusive demo tracks or shapes an album’s success with their review is surely a menace to MTV or VH1, companies that are increasingly more distant from music fans with their programming choices influenced by major record labels, and miss the huge long tail of music that MySpace, Pitchfork and thousands of music blogs have now filled.

Or quoting The Buggles:

In my mind and in my car, we can’t rewind we’ve gone too far.

MTV, take care.