A guide you don't have to follow: Aesthetics and Vision Boards
A couple of weeks ago I showed you my mood boards/aesthetics for The Interview and said I would write a more in depth post about how I create them for my "A guide you don't have to follow" series.
Well, this is that post.
Disclaimer: As with all of the installments of this series, I'm not saying this is how it is supposed to be done. I'm only saying this is how I'm doing it. Second disclaimer. I do not own the rights to any of these pictures, I found them on Pinterest and other sites, so keep that in mind.
Now on with the post where I show you how this came together:
Why Vision Boards?
Other than the obvious Why not? you mean? For me personally this is just how I organise what inspires me. I am a very visual person so I tend to take in pictures a lot more than music for example (which is also why I don't have spotify playlists for my novel). Additionally I need to have my main characters in front of me to get a feel for them. Not always from the very start, but usually I have a very specific actor, singer or just stock photo person in front of me to create my character around them. And no, this is not me trying to justify why I have an entire folder dedicated to Theo James. Not at all.
How do I create them?
1. Pinterest Boards
Pinterest is THE place to go when you need inspiration and want to create vision boards. It's not only good for weird beauty advice and recipes but has virtual any photo you could possibly need.
As for how to create them I think it's pretty easy because it is the sole purpose of Pinterest. You look for pictures you like and you pin them to a board. Within that board you can create folders and then add on endlessly. The great thing is also that Pinterest keeps suggesting similar photos for you to add.
If you want more general aesthetics try searching for the word aesthetic behind your search description and more moody photos should show up.
I try to keep things simple on my boards by only having one folder for each main character and then one with general inspiration. Any additional folder is dependent on how much time I spend procrastinating while writing. As you can see, I procrastinated a lot while writing The Interview.
To show you how the overall feel of the boards is, I'll open up the general inspiration one for you. But don't worry, I think there is still plenty of "George" in there.
You can organise all of the pictures individually, but these happen to just come up like this when I put them in a folder with each other, so no particular order.
There is really no limit to how many photos you can add, but there is a limit to what you can do to them and that is where my next method comes into play.
2. (Canva) Collages
I know of very talented people who can do this in photoshop, but I'm not one of those people so I use Canva to create collages.
(Please excuse the German, I didn't know how to change it for the screenshots)
To really make this a How To, I'll do a step by step, just for you ;)
I didn't take screenshots of selecting the size of your creation, but I'm sure you know how that works.
Once you have your project open you'll want to use these grid layouts:
There is a bunch of different sizes, variations and amounts of photos you can put into one creation. For this George aesthetic I used one with 7 slots of different sizes. I like having the middle one being the biggest so I can add a quote. The cool thing about using the grid layouts is that the photos slot right in and you don't have to worry about cropping them.
The next step is to either upload photos from your computer or chose photos from Canva's own photo gallery. I used photos that I downloaded from Pinterest:
Now my last step is always to select a filter to use on all of the photos so I can make every more aesthetically pleasing (get it? Because it's an aesthetic? Someone please slap me.)
For George I used "Drama" because I really liked the depth it gave to the gold and blue tones (if that makes ANY sense). This is also the stage where I'll add a quote (either one that inspired the story/character or one that they actually used in the story).
But honestly just have fun with it. That's the whole point of this exercise. To see what inspires you. If you want you can also draw these kind of vision boards, or cut out photos from newspapers. If you prefer spotify playlists because music inspires you, then do that.
There is really no limit or rule for how you get inspired to write your story. And you don't have to show them to anyone either. My Pinterest boards are usual private because I love being the only one understanding the cluster f**k of photos.
I really hope you got something from this post and are inspired to get a little creative. This is so great to work on your story and thoughts in a bit of a different way. Typing at a computer is not the only way a story gets created.
If you feel comfortable with sharing then I would love to see your creations, tag me on Twitter or Instagram :)
Take care, stay healthy and write on,
Twitter: @lena_fiala
Instagram: @lena_fiala_
Business inquiries: lena.fiala99@gmail.com
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