Build Your Collection - Tips & Tricks
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Your Collection is a space to gather, arrange and share inspiration from across the VSCO community. By republishing images to your Collection, you can revisit them for future reference, or experiment with a moodboarding approach to inspire your next project or idea. To republish an image, simply tap to view it, and look for the two-arrow republish button. Even faster, long press an image and use a slide-up gesture toward the icon to republish straight from your feed or a profile. Here are a few tips and examples that can help you build a Collection that will keep you inspired to create.
Create metaphor & symbolism
By making space for metaphor and symbolism in your Collection, you can begin to communicate more nuanced ideas, feelings, and experiences. In talking with photographic artist McNair Evans, he described a mental Venn diagram he often uses when looking at images of all kinds. By combining visual interest with relatable and relevant contexts, symbolism and metaphor naturally arise. Look out for consistencies or disruptions in what you find inspiring, as these can often point you toward a new idea or theme to explore.
Image by emiliesakari
Get inspiration from how others use their Collections. This sequence from sugabeetclub's Collection shows how you can find several iterations of the same idea or subject. They come together as a group and take on more symbolic qualities, while showing a diverse set of visual approaches.
Group & organize
Once you’ve identified common themes or ideas, you can use your Collection to share groups of images around a single concept. Try grouping based on multiple characteristics such as color, mood, shape, or texture. Also try to understand how the images can elicit more emotional responses, such as humor, and experiment organizing them based on these aspects as well. The more time you spend with photos, the more you will learn how they can interact in interesting and often unpredictable ways.
* Try this — Don’t want to share an image on your Collection, but still want a way to refer back to it? Use the same process as republishing, but favorite the image instead with the star icon. Access your Favorites from the settings menu within your profile space. The creator always gets a notification either way.
“You have the tone and the pitch, which for me is predominantly created by color and quality of line. The narrative properties of images function more as a back beat, like a bass drum.” – McNair Evans
Combine the tips above to create unique visual patterns and rhythm. Though it may seem like a stretch, making sequences of images can be a similar to making a beat or arranging music. Though visual on their own, photos have the ability to evoke several different senses – such as sound, taste, or touch. Mix and make patterns between ‘loud’ and ‘soft’ images, while using other common elements to thread them together. Repeat and disrupt these patterns to create a dynamic Collection.
The VSCO Collection is a great place to start for finding inspiration, images, and creators to follow. Share how you’re able to bring photos together by republishing image to your own Collection.
Share what you create on VSCO.
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