As a designer, I’m always looking for great inspiration to spark the art direction of a project. I’m pretty sure I embarrassed my husband more than once on our road trip to New Orleans last week as I snapped photo after photo of awesome little details. Here’s some of my favorite pieces of design inspiration from our trip. Enjoy!

Architectural Details

You get more amazing architectural details than you could ever dream of when you visit a city as old as New Orleans. The little bits and pieces that make up the exteriors of historic buildings are amazing… and I kind of kept holding up our explorations to snap photos.

I love the sense of movement all of the vertical lines give this older church.

The Adubon Zoo‘s not nearly as old as anything you’d see in the French Quarter, but it’s still got some amazing details worked in. I love the top of this column, how the lion’s mane morphs into some more swirly details.

And they’ve got some great ancient inspired pieces throughout – I’m sorry, but the old Simpsons fan in my brain keeps calling this a big ugly head, and I got it from Mr. Smithers.

And I dig this Mayan-inspired jaguar wall!

Speaking of Jaguars…

Repeat Pattern Inspiration from New Orleans

No one does animal print better than an actual animal.

I am obsessed with the idea of someday doing a repeat pattern of photorealistic jellyfish… And maybe making a dress out of the fabric. The jellyfish tank at the Adubon Aquarium of the Americas further fueled that lifelong dream…

But I’ll settle for a nice quirky imperfect handpainted polka dot pattern inspired by the back of this one jelly.

I couldn’t get juuuust the right photo to do this justice, but I’d love to see a repeat pattern of different colored parakeets on branches – like it’d incorporate a horizontal stripe, with brightly colored watercolor birds perched all over it.

I saw this pattern hanging on the outside of a hotel as we explored New Orleans, and I fell in love. The mix of hard geometric shapes against the organic patterns of the rock… L.O.V.E.LOVE.

This was an accidental foot shot, but a great example of one way you can freshen up the chevron pattern that never goes away. Give it more of a rectangles pieced together feel.

Or even add a marble texture to it!

I’m also super in love with this bathroom wall I saw inside of Sucre candy store on Conti Street. Don’t be afraid to take a really standard repeat pattern, and add a little something to it to give a little more custom POW.

Design Elements from Our New Orleans Trip

Color. Acid green with dark chocolate brown, and a muted blue.

Check out all the vertical lines of this bridge, how they’re parallel, but not uniformly spaced.

I’m obsessed with all of the lines, patterns, and textures you can see if you stare at this cardboard horse from the Louisiana Children’s Museum long enough.

And I’m also a huge fan of the shape of this cartoony car.

But Phil was a bigger fan of these huge building blocks. I love the sense of motion his sculpture of geometric shapes has to it.

This light wall at the Louisiana Children’s Museum was amazing – Josh and Phil danced around in front of it for a while…

Long enough for us to see it change to a different style. Both have great motion, repetition, and gobs of bright colors.

This photo is criminally out of focus, but the soft focus almost makes it so bad it’s good. Like it’s nostalgic feeling, like an old dream you’re straining to remember clearly the next day.

Typography Design Inspiration from New Orleans

Super basic hand lettering, but I’m digging the font. Nice and neat.

Check out this handlettered chalkboard cafe sign – big huge high five to smallchalk. This thing took some WORK.

This was from a bar be que restaurant we ate at in Mobile, Alabama on the way home. Really, really good food, and really awesome chicken in a wine glass on the sign. And also rad fonts.

What’s the coolest design inspiration you’ve seen in New Orleans?

Was it a building, or a shirt someone was wearing? I wanna hear about it in the comments!