The Browse No. 7: Piecing It All Together
Digital vs. physical moodboards, a decorative swan tray and hot girl puzzling
One of my “ins” for 2024 is to acquire and maintain more physical media. This isn’t exactly a hard intention to set because I’m already swimming in it; CDs from my high school days, my dad’s old vinyls, mine and my partner’s blu-ray collection and so so so so so many magazines.
I also want to get in a habit of browsing physical media more. I have to admit that surfing the web has started to put me in a little bit of a paradox of choice at times. Because quite often, our digital experience consists of content being shoveled to us instead of going on the search for inspiration and information.
And for myself, I think it’s become a crutch that I depend on to decide my tastes for me, instead of discnerning them on my own. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of vision board making and how we curate visual tapestries of what we want to manifest. Is it better for things to come to us, or for us to search for them? Or is it a mix of both?
A friend of mine recently posted on her story: “Do you prefer physical or digital vision boards more?” And while I responded that I do both each year — I think they’re very distinct experiences and processes. The key aspect of digital moodboarding is that I have the world at my fingertips; Pinterest, online archives, google images, my own camera roll, etc, etc. All I need to do is search a term and a find it. But ah, therein lies the issue — what do you search? What if you don’t know what to search? I guess, in a way, a digital moodboard works when I have a specific idea in my head.
Especially when making an annual vision board, I think it should be less about laying out your concrete goals and rather collaging together visual intensions for the year. They can be abstract, wild and flexible. It should be a cathartic crafting session of sorts!
It can also be a better option when trying to really look outside the box. But the extra special thing about physical moodboarding is that it feels more like the inspiration, the themes, the elements for your board come to you (in an often serendipitous way), instead of you searching for things.
Reflecting on this year’s vision board making session — which I got to do together with some friends on the floor surrounded by magazine scraps and glitter stickers — I realize that sometimes, setting intentions for the year shouldn’t be so concrete and planned out. It should be intuitive, meditative and a little messy. There’s something magical about opening up a magazine or a piece of physical media that you maybe think has nothing of interest to you — and you end up happening upon something that speaks to you: like a missing puzzle piece that was waiting for you all along.
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