We’re taking a poll. Who used to cut their favorite pages out of magazines and tack them onto their walls?? Guilty as charged. Oh how many Teen Beats I destroyed! Thankfully I moved onto Lucky, Domino and Elle Decor. Even just a couple of years ago I was still saving boxes of my favorite tears. But now we’ve all become wholly subsumed by Pinterest and the digital versions of our favorite glossies. It seems the old school moodboard has fallen by the way side and that makes me sad. There’s something so important that comes from the physical act of compiling your inspirations, moving them around until it suddenly just fits!
That’s why I purposefully/forcefully/willingly/excitedly created an area in our Team Apartment 34 office redesign for a physical moodboard because, really, nothing beats it! No matter what kind of photo shoot or project we’re prepping for, we always feel more focused once we go through the exercise of creating our board. It’s also a fabulous way to get our butts out of our chairs and our eyeballs away from the screen!
But in the days of digital everything, we have to get a little more creative with our creative process. You may remember this outfit we posted last month. Well, the inspiration came from the moodboard below! Despite popular belief, we don’t just throw on an outfit and snap a pic or two. Wardrobe styling is taken pretty seriously around here. We always start with a a general idea or theme, but we focus in on the final look based on our compilation of design spreads and fashion editorials. It can be a pattern, a mood, color palette or texture, light, or even typeface. The only qualification we have is that it must make us stop and say, “omg- obsessed.”
While we still pull objects, fabric swatches and yes, occasionally tear from a magazine, now we print out our favorite inspirations! You remember those things- printers? If you’re a visual person, we highly recommend adding one to your home office. We’ve been putting our Canon Pixma Pro to serious good use. The photo quality images it prints out – even of our pins – is just jaw dropping. There’s something so satisfying about getting things off of a screen and into your hands. That way you can mix, match, tack and tape to your heart’s content! You’ll be amazed at what new life images take on when actually on paper!
After we’ve amassed a good stack of prints comes the fun part: bringing everything together. If your brain hasn’t already done so, it definitely will start to detect patterns as you begin taking things from the printer and putting them up on you cork board, wall or office door. We have a wire grid from the hardware store you could use chicken wire for a similar look! that we spray painted white- it’s our favorite place to clip our printed images and it only cost about $7 to make!
Some of our favorite sources for inspiration boards include:
> Hit The Pavement: Go outside, walk around the block and pick up feathers, rocks or any other flotsam and jetsam that catches your eye
> Play Photog: Snap pics of cool architecture and patterns – to print out on your Canon Pixma Pro of course
> Swatch It Up: Go to your nearest fabric store for free swatches and to get your crafty brain gears in motion
> Print from Pinterest: Print out your fave pins to really bring your pinboards to life
> Scan Old Magazines: don’t forget those 1990′s Vogue issues- their pages are packed with forgotten inspo. If you don’t want to tear, scan and print, instead!
> Bobbles and Bits: scour your office or home for anything that jumps out at you- a necklace, handwritten note, the latest business card someone handed you, etc
Et voila! You have inspiration that not only helps you execute a creative project, but a process that also gets you through any creative rut that may come your way- that is until you’re ready to take it down and start all over again!
While we’ve been focused on mood boarding, after our crazy travel season we’re excited to use our Canon Pixma Pro in a ton of other ways! How fun would it be to print out travel photos we’ve already forgotten about? Need some quick art for your gallery wall? Why not create your own by printing out your very own Instagrams! They’d look stunning coming out of this printer. Really, the possibilities are quite endless.
What are some of your favorite sources for finding inspiration? We’d love to know!
original photography for apartment 34 by Aubrie Pick // styling by Bianca Sotelo
This post is in partnership with Canon Pixma Pro. All thoughts and opinions are our own. Thank you for supporting posts that keep Apartment 34′s doors open.
%%youtubomatic_0_0%%
Source: apartment34.com