The power of references in design

Works by: Isidro Ferrer, Dima Shiryaev, Braulio Amado, Jakub Zasada, Matt Ryan Tobin, Semen Sueta, Matt Needle

Reference is a source that a designer uses while working on project to find better design solutions. In visual design it could be any image. With references, we can find original ideas and styles, and also understand what we want to see as a final product.

Note: using references ≠ stealing! We do not copy someone’s work, but use the best design experience to create something unique.

Let’s go to history

Artists have always used each others works to find inspiration and unique style. For example, Impressionism was born after the invention of photography, as it could capture specific composition and light. Romantic movement of Medievalism, which became popular with William Morris, had its purpose to preserve English legacy and was inspired by Middle Ages books and paintings. French fauvists and expressionists were fond of Van Gogh’s vibrant oil paintings. Even Renaissance was inspired from a great greek culture and use its legacy to create masterpieces.

Nowadays, we can sometimes easily trace the source of inspiration and I am sure that there is a small number of artists who haven’t used references at least once in their work.

Medieval book (left) and William Morris’s pattern (right

How to use references

• Use different references for different “layers” of your project and combine it. Do not copy! Only by mixing the best parts of different works you will create something unique. For example, you can take composition for your draft from a newspaper and colour solution from a Coca Cola bottle and stylise it as your favourite movie poster.

• Be careful to the details. Learn to understand other people’s decisions. How did the artist use light and composition in this piece? Why did he/she stylised the work like that? Ask yourself questions about your reference.

• Be careful if you use someone’s illustrations as a reference, you risk to copy all the mistakes as well

• Avoid blind copying. It is crucially important for your work to deeply understand why something that you see is considered good and why you want to take a certain composition, style or colour scheme.

References: Traktorbeam and “Artworld”

Where to find them

Now, as we understood how important is to use references, there is a huge question to find them. It is very critical to find quality works to refer. Later in time it will be easy for you to tell from your own experience which work is good enough to use, but in the beginning I can recommend these resources:

• Behance “The Best” section. Behance is a well known source for inspiration, and in “The Best” section they keep works that have been already filtered for you by their curators

• Awwwards Specifically the “Winners” section

• Posterino Is a channel on Telegram with thousands of posters

However, I advice not to look only in your usual design area. For example, if you always find website inspiration by looking at website projects, maybe you should try to look in other sections such as photography or fashion. Creative ideas are born out of the box, try to use Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Empire state building photo to find a composition or color solution.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. I want to thank Wannabelike project for a “layer method” of work with references.

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