I find looking at really amazing work really frustrating at times. Looking at the final site, brochure, whatever, never gives you a sense of the process the designer used to complete the project.
It always appears as if these amazing ideas always spring forth from the minds of designers fully formed and realized. Rarely can you see the half dozen false starts, the wholesale throwing out of ideas, or the compromises that had to be incorporated to satisfy everyone involved in the process. Jaco Joubert at Guestlist was kind enough to put together a great video of the entire process of redesigning their homepage.
To me, these inside looks inside the process are much more instructive than the final pieces themselves. You can see what ideas carry through, what works, what doesn’t, and how the whole thing comes together. As time consuming as this can be, I wish more designers would share this part of their jobs. I think we’d all be better off for it.