It is very easy for the ephemera of everyday life to disappear; leaflets binned, magazines recycled and books reprinted. If you get in the habit of collecting examples of design that you encounter everyday, then you start to get a feel of your tastes and interests, and over time both your design horizons and cultural awareness broadens.
Start a scrapbook, sketchbook or use a blog to document the visual world around you. Find examples of visual language that interest you, these could be taken from anywhere (art, film, photography, illustration, design, craft, cinema, hobbies, etc).
If you can, visit museums, galleries and consider all the graphic design around you – in books, magazines, cinemas, shops and poster sites. This is your investigation, so follow your nose.
Collect leaflets, flyers and postcards; take photos of things you see in the street; keep pages from magazines – anything and everything that is visually stimulating to you. There is no right or wrong, the important thing is to actively look at the world around you and become genuinely curious about visual languages.
Reflect on what you have been collecting: are there dominant themes emerging? You may find yourself interested in a particular area of design, era or design product. What does this tell you about your own visual language and cultural awareness? Make notes in your learning log.
I have been collecting design stuff I like for a long time on Pinterest. I have several boards setup covering “design ideas”, “logos” and “typography” as well as on for my college work.
The “logos” board is the biggest of the lot with over 700 pins in it. There are logos of varying styles and shapes. I am drawn towards what I class as ‘clever’ logo and the more minimal the better.
The ‘typography’ board is the newest and is a work in progress but I am really enjoying my typography at the moment and most of the work I am currently doing seems to have type in it somewhere!
The “design ideas” board is where I put images that I use for research when doing any design work.
Also, I guess that my mobile phone is a visual diary of events and interests that is documented over time. This has only just occurred to me and is an interesting concept that I probably need to use more. My DSLR camera is also an underused piece of kit that only comes out on holidays etc..
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