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About this lesson
Quick chat about gathering references and inspiration.
Quick reference
References and Inspiration
Quick chat about gathering references and inspiration.
When to use
Reference material, also called 'scrap' or 'mood boards' are usually one of the first steps in the creative process. This is the material that we gather and collect that will help us to achieve the goals of a creative project. In this particular case we want to gather research and inspiration that will inspire us to create a mascot logo, but this part of the creative process should be implemented before jumping into any kind of design work.
Instructions
- Once you understand the goal of a project it is important to spend some time doing a bit of research. There are of course times where we may need to rush to get a project finished, but whenever time permits it can be extremely helpful to gather relevant materials.
- Go for a walk before getting started and take note of anything that inspires you or sparks an idea along the way.
- You can use your phone or camera to take pictures of interesting signs or window displays or anything else.
- Head to a local book store and browse some design books and magazines that will help you generate ideas.
- Once you have some images or scrap material save it to your computer.
- You can upload your images to a secret Pinterest board that only you can see so that you will have a central location to access all of your inspiration.
Hints & tips
- Remember that this is all about developing a process. I am showing you my own process that works for me, but as you gain more experience with design projects you will begin to develop a creative process of your own.
- It's a great idea to take photos even if you are just using your phone so that you can come back to them later or save them to a Pinterest board.
- Pinterest is a great way to keep all of your reference materials in one place without having to use the storage space on your computer.
- If storage isn't a concern and you don't want to use Pinterest, you can simply create a folder where you will save your inspiration on your computer.
- Make it fun! We spend so much time on our computers that we forget to take breaks. You can use the opportunity to gather research to go to a book store and look at magazines or watch a movie. Anything that will get the wheels turning can be utilized.
- 00:05 Now that we've talked a little bit about what you guys can expect from this course
- 00:08 and we kind of have a good jumping off point with our basics course,
- 00:12 I just wanted to talk to you guys for a few minutes about gathering resources,
- 00:15 references, and inspiration.
- 00:18 Now, this goes without saying, but any time that you need to start a project,
- 00:22 you should be trying to generate ideas for it, either by thumbnail sketching and
- 00:27 looking at other designs or anything that will get you guys inspired,
- 00:31 even things like going to the bookstore, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, what have you, and
- 00:35 just looking through some different books and
- 00:37 magazines on the subject matter that you're about to jump into.
- 00:41 And this is just a great way to kind of fill your head with ideas.
- 00:44 Of course, we don't want to copy anything, but at the same time,
- 00:48 you know there is ways that you can kind of borrow ideas from different elements.
- 00:52 Now, one thing that I personally like to do is kind of use a website like Pinterest
- 00:56 where I can gather my references and put them all on a board,
- 00:59 which you can either keep public or secret if you don't want anyone else to see it.
- 01:04 But also you can just do things like looking on different stock photo sites,
- 01:08 sites like Behance, From up North, Design Inspiration,
- 01:11 all kinds of different design blogs out there for you guys to check stuff out.
- 01:16 And I've just kind of saved a few of those images that I'm kind of looking at here
- 01:21 and these are things that I used prior to even during a sketch.
- 01:24 And it's just to get the ideas flowing and to kind of see some different executions
- 01:29 and ways and styles that you can approach a project.
- 01:32 But, for
- 01:33 this particular project we are going to be doing a bull mascot logo design.
- 01:38 So, of course, I started by looking at some stock photo sites and
- 01:42 just checking out actual images of bulls, and even things like just cows and
- 01:47 pandas and any other kind of mascots, grizzlies and things like that, just so
- 01:52 I could get a sense of how these are usually executed, what kind of angles and
- 01:57 shapes we might be able to use, and kind of also informing things like color.
- 02:03 So these are a lot the choices that you have to think about before
- 02:06 you even start Illustrator, and jump in to begin working.
- 02:10 And, I don't just do this for logo projects,
- 02:12 but pretty much any kind of project I'm going to do.
- 02:15 I'll always try to set aside a little bit of time just to gather some references and
- 02:19 get inspired.
- 02:21 So those are a few of the ways that I do it personally, but of course, it's
- 02:24 important for you guys to kind of develop a process that you can make your own, and
- 02:28 that's something that you kind of figure out over time.
- 02:30 Just as you work and as you do more projects,
- 02:33 you guys will kind of develop a process of your own that works for you.
- 02:37 And I would strongly encourage you guys to kind of experiment with a few of
- 02:40 these different methods until you find something that you're comfortable with.
- 02:44 But I just wanted to kind of describe my own process and
- 02:47 how I usually get my inspiration and references before I even begin sketching.
- 02:52 So in the next section,
- 02:53 I'll show you guys the sketch that we're gonna be using to create our mascot logo.
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