The Secret to Developing Your Artistic Style
“If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want”
~Kevin Ngo
Over the past four years, I’ve become increasingly interested in the topic of Lifestyle Design. If you’re unfamiliar with lifestyle design, it is essentially intentionally crafting a way of life (or style of living) that aligns with who you are (your values, purpose, and dreams). It’s about asking yourself questions like, “where will I live in my dream life? What work will I do? What will a normal day in my dream life look like? What car will I drive? What will my partner be like? And then refining the answers to these questions as you grow until you actualize your desired life.
In order to design the life you want, you have to first know the kind of life you want! It seems simple, but it’s surprising how many people don’t sit down and ask themselves about what they want in life. Some artists, especially at the beginning of their journey, fail to ask themselves about the kind of art they want to create or even try to define what shapes their work.
While this article isn’t necessarily about crafting your dream life, the principles of lifestyle design can be applied to your own artistic journey. In order to develop your own taste as an artist and create a truly unique style, you need to define what you like (and don’t like) by curating visual inputs that reinforce your conscious and subconscious mind. Let me explain…
Essentially, we are all just an amalgamation of external influences!
The books you read
The media you consume
The mentors/teachers you listen to
The places you’ve visited
Your life experiences
These all inform who you are, the way you act, and how you express yourself.
Your external influences quite literally build up your foundational being.
So what if I told you that you could craft a unique artistic style by curating a collection of visual influences?
I first developed this idea when pitching a music video to a client. I was creating a vision/mood board for the project, as I normally do, and began selecting images of potential shot locations, sample shots to explain the characters, and collecting reference frames from movies that fit the aesthetic of the music video. The goal of this was to create a zoomed-out vision for the video before actually creating a storyboard or concrete narrative, essentially crafting a pitch or treatment for the artist to see.
I later realized that I could do the same for other projects, not just video projects. In fact, I could create vision boards for potential photoshoots, design layouts, and even 3D architectural models. If you’ve been in the creative space for a while, this isn’t new to you.
However, I challenged myself to apply this in a much broader sense. I thought to myself, “How can I create my own world - a world full of visual ideas and objects that inspire me?” This question became the framework for what I’m going to share with you right now.
As artists, we can pick and choose pieces of external influences and combine them in unique ways to craft something new. If you can take a pre-existing idea, change it marginally, and layer other pre-existing ideas on top, you can create an entirely new piece of work (with lots of iteration of course).
No one has the exact same influences as you.
People may copy what you do, but they will never be able to create your next piece. The culmination of your influences, interests, and experiences keeps you one step ahead of any imitators.
This is what makes you different from everyone else!
Creating unique and authentic pieces of work all starts with a simple foundational idea:
learn how to train your eyes.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Become extremely conscious about what you are consuming - the books you read, the art you view, and the videos you watch
Reflect on the sources that have influenced your style already
Are you consuming content that will influence your art positively?
2. Look for sources of inspiration
Clothing Designers: Create a separate Instagram account and only follow accounts with clothing that you would wear personally. Note the garments you are drawn to, the colors you like, and the people who wear them. Take note of the graphics on the garments or if you prefer no graphics at all.
Photographers: Create a Pinterest board that pins photographs that you want to wish you took yourself. Pay attention to the composition, color, and subjects.
Filmmakers: Make a list of movies within the genre you wish to create, that is shot in locations you would want to shoot in, and are made by directors whose style you enjoy. Study individual frames from these movies.
3. Pay attention to your favorite artist’s favorite artist.
If your favorite artist is on social media, check out the accounts they are following. Who are they drawing their inspiration from?
If your favorite director has published their personal reading list or their personal favorite movie list, read those books, and watch those movies.
Even the most renowned artists drew influence from another. Hiroshige, Millet, and Gauguin were all vital influences that developed the art style we recognize as Van Gogh’s.
4. Build a collection of reference material for each category
Save images from the internet of your favorite cars, homes, and locations into separate folders on your computer. Organize them clearly so you can reference them quickly.
Create a Pinterest board of interesting visual art, design, or typography.
Take photos of visuals that excite you throughout your daily life, nothing is too insignificant! I’ve taken photos of street signs and even light fixtures.
Save personalized playlists of music based on their genre and the way they make you feel.
*Note: Don’t restrict yourself to one medium! Allow yourself to be influenced by culture, music, technology, and a variety of artistic disciplines. Even if you are a music producer by trade, you never know when a photograph may spark an idea for a song. You will realize that seemingly unrelated ideas are often connected.
The goal is to curate your own little world that is filled with inspiration from all parts of life.
5. Create a way to view these collections daily
Spend 15 minutes on your Instagram explore page looking through the accounts you’ve followed above. Visit the explore page to discover new artists with similar styles.
Print out your favorite images and create a physical board that you can hang in your room so that these visuals are reinforced every day.
My personal favorite method of viewing these collections is to create Pinterest boards for each of these specific interests. On my phone, I have 1-4 widgets that cycle through my saved pins every hour. Every time I open my phone, I see a curated piece of inspiration that reinforces my subconscious mind over time.
To clarify, the purpose of this exercise isn’t to just find a bunch of art you like and then steal it. Instead, this is meant to train your eyes to identify what it likes so that when you are in a creative state, your brain will begin to make connections based on your curated collection of references. Over time, ideas will begin to form naturally.
Allow yourself to be molded by the visual work you consume and in turn, it will allow you to mold new pieces that are inspired, but unique.