  We discuss an innovative method for the description of inhomogeneous phases
designed to improve the standard Ginzburg-Landau expansion. The method is
characterized by two key ingredients. The first one is a moving average of the
order parameter designed to account for the long-wavelength modulations of the
condensate. The second one is a sum of the high frequency modes, to improve the
description of the phase transition to the restored phase. The method is
applied to compare the free energies of 1D and 2D inhomogeneous structures
arising in the chirally symmetric broken phase.
