> In my experience, of the best ways to get started in design is to replicate other people's designs as perfectly as you can, just to get the hang of designing something good.

In the movie Finding Forrester and aspiring writer is unsure of what to write and has been sitting in front of a typewriter for what seems a few hours.. An experienced one gives him one of his works and tells him to type it. He says sometimes the simple rhythm of typing can get us from page 1 to page 2.

Emulation is wonderful.

Interesting! I got the idea from Hunter S. Thompson, who apparently recopied The Great Gatsby before writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson#Early_journa...

I actually enjoy your version of the hat icon better! Great job. This is good advice. People learning to become designers get hung up in the creativity portion, then falter with creating anything at all.

Hey that sounds like a great idea. Could that also be a good way to practice iOS or android development?

If only apps released their source code more often..but you could look at open source apps: http://maniacdev.com/2010/06/35-open-source-iphone-app-store....

Yes, absolutely, even if you can't see how they did you'll get experience solving the problems they had to solve.