Hi everyone, it's Justine.
This video is not meant as a beginners guide to Pinterest, there are more than enough of those on youtube already
This video is meant more as a creative guide, assuming you know the basic functions and how to pin on Pinterest already
I'd like to share with you five tips that I have learned through time by using Pinterest myself and why I think it's in fact a great tool for creativity.
Tip number 1:
Specific boards on Pinterest are more inspiring and more efficient than generic boards.
Let me explain
A generic topic to collect pictures for could be architecture
More specific it is if you do "Bauhaus architecture"
Even more specific would be "Bauhaus architecture that includes 90 degree angles"
If you do that, the more detail and specific you go, the more graphic your architecture board is going to get and the more visually inspiring it will become.
You could also collect seasons, for instance I have a board about winter which you see here
I'll come back to that one in a couple of minutes, though
You can do a board for projects, for instance if you want to re-decorate your living room
or you're looking for inspiration to build yourself a DIY and crafts room, that's a very concrete project so that's an easy board to do
Or you could be even more specific and not collect things, objects, but collect textures or colours.
If you are cool-skinned you can collect on one board cool colours.
If you are warm-skinned you could for instance collect pictures of people who are warm-skinned for future inspiration for your own wardrobe and research
or just to train your eye into recognising warm and cool.
Then if you also want boards that are more fashion specific, which I highly encourage - obviously - you could collect garment types like dresses,
jackets, shoes, hats - I've been hearing you want a video about hats so I'm going to work on that one
Or you could collect pockets or colours - whatever you like.
You could organise several boards in a chronological way, for instance fashion through the decades
and you have one board by decade, or you can do that geographically.
Fashion in each continent, or in countries where you have already travelled to during your holidays
and then you can fill in the gaps by travelling to more countries.
That's a great reason to travel.
So you can make moodboards later
You could also collect pictures by type of art, for instance I do portrait photography, but only things I have never seen before
Not classical portraits of any kind
I love that board and it made me discover a lady called Cindy Sherman, who is a great self-portrait photographer
and I have been a fan of her since that time. So that's how one board builds up my horizon a lot broader, so to say.
So really that's the essence of using Pinterest
The more specific you get, the more inspiring it is and the more you are going to learn on the way.
Tip number 2:
Don't just pin from Pinterest to Pinterest.
That sounds a bit silly, but here's the thing.
Pinterest tends to suggest new visual to you that are similar to things that you have already seen and pinned.
When you are doing Pinterest for inspirational purposes, you don't want to narrow down the choices of what you are getting.
You want to broaden the range, so it is in fact a bit counter productive.
That's why I'm saying, don't just pin from Pinterest, also pin from other Blogs when you do research, from tumblr,
from any other source on the internet
and offline, you can also take pictures in your daily life of things you see on the street, in nature and upload those onto the boards.
Those pictures are more personal, so they are going to have a bigger weight within your board, on Pinterest, once you have uploaded them.
You want pictures like that to make your boards richer, so to say.
Tip number 3:
Do not work on too many boards at the same time.
You know how people say, multitasking - humans can multitask, especially women, even more moms
That's a fake skill ;-)
There is no such thing as multitasking. The brain works in mono-task.
It can do several things one after another, but not at the same time.
Seriously.
So if you are working on too many boards at the same time, you might miss a gem you just got a glimpse of on the street.
You want to catch that gem when you see it
Yeah?
You don't want to miss it.
So work, ideally, on one board
a day or a week,
so that you can really focus on that and
everything you are going to be looking at will be analysed through the filter of that one thing you are researching at the moment
of that one topic.
And it's more efficient when you are visual research.
Tip number 4:
Once you have at least fifty or maybe even one hundred pictures on a board
if you look at it again, you might learn something about yourself.
For instance, my board about winter
I found out looking at it after a while, that that season for me is more a feeling -
a set of feelings, than just a colour palette, or textures or something cold.
That was an "A-ha" moment for me
because I wasn't really aware of that.
I found out that there is a word for that in Scandinavian languages, and i think in Swedish it's called "Hygge".
It means cosyness - it means warmth, at home, in winter, in a nice place with nice people and it feels good inside.
So in other languages, but not in mine, there is actually a word for that concept I've been looking for
So now I'm researching the topic of "Hygge" further.
What I'm trying to say is, Pinterest, doing boards in general, helps you understand more about how you personally see life
Tip number 5:
Where your brain, your memories, your feelings, your boards take you does not have to be public.
You can start a profile, pin for years without anybody knowing.
You can release your boards for the public later if you wish to, but you never have to.
For me that's the advantage of Pinterest over Instagram, it doesn't have to be perfect
nobody is looking at your follower numbers,
Nobody is checking if you used the same filter and the same structure for each picture
I have a huge problem with that on instagram
Nobody is going to judge you based on a Pinterest page
Nope
Not even if you work in a creative field.
No one cares - it's just for you.
So I'd like to encourage anybody watching this right now
Even if you think "Ah I'm not creative, I don't have a good eye for this, I'm not sure my boards would really look that good.."
I would like to encourage you guys to try it
The more you do, the better you get - and better doesn't mean picture perfect, it means
better in understanding how you see the world,
and what your personal interpretation of things is.
And that's the most creative exercise and the best learning path
of all.
Pinterest is a great place to experiment with zero pressure.
So if I could convince you guys to start, try it, start pinning, thumbs up - but to you!
I'm happy also to answer any question on creative work, visual research, creativity in general
feel free to ask them in the comments below.
Otherwise, I will see you Wednesday and Sunday, as every week
and till then take care - and here are two more videos for you to watch
Take care. Bye bye