The fear of running out of inspiration isn’t only something writers face when they freeze in front of a blank page; it happens to everyone who enjoys creating, to a greater or lesser extent. But the worst thing you can do in these situations is lose the desire to keep doing what you love: whether that’s sewing, crocheting, making up songs in the shower, or building models out of craft sticks. Don’t get discouraged if you haven’t felt like creating anything for a while; quite the opposite: when inspiration fails, go out and look for it!
Okay, but… Where do you look for inspiration? How do you do that?
We love that you asked because the blog where you’re reading this article right now is one of those magical places where inspiration flows freely. Browse through a few posts and see for yourself, but if you need more, today we want to help you find the ideas you need in just a few clicks. They say you don’t know what you want until you see someone else do it, and thanks to the internet and social media, we’re lucky enough to be able to see absolutely everything. Sometimes even more than we can take in, and with so much content at our fingertips, you may feel a little lost in all the information.
That’s why we created this post: to tell you about two of the fastest, most useful, and most powerful tools you have for finding inspiration in images, the most direct and impactful way to fall in love with an idea.
Where to find image inspiration online.
1. Pinterest.
Pinterest is a social network that lets you share content from anywhere on the web in image form. These images are grouped in users’ accounts as boards organized by topic. Imagine that each board is a large corkboard where photographs are pinned with thumbtacks, leading you to the website where they were shared. It’s one of our favorite places because of the huge amount of content you can find and how easy it is to go straight to what interests you. It’s also very visual because, by organizing content as images, it lets you browse quickly as if you were looking through a catalog or shop window, and go deeper only when you find something that catches your attention.
There are three ways you can use Pinterest to find image inspiration, and the truth is that this particular network has an enormous amount of it.
– You can follow the accounts you like. For example, although we’re more active on other social networks, you can follow us on our Pinterest account and access all our boards. You can also look at which accounts we follow and follow them too. It’s a way to find people with related topics.
– You can follow the boards you like. Maybe you’re not interested in everything we share, but only the tutorials, for example. In that case, instead of following our account, you can follow just that particular board.
– You can enter search terms. In this case, you don’t need to follow boards or accounts, or even have your own Pinterest account. Just tell the search engine what interests you and you’ll see photos and content from all over the network. This gives you specific, direct access to exactly what you’re looking for.
2. Instagram.
You’re probably more familiar with Instagram than with Pinterest, or at least it may sound more familiar to you. Instagram is based solely on images, although unlike Pinterest, they aren’t organized by topic within accounts. Another difference from Pinterest is that it isn’t a place for sharing content you find around the web; you upload only your own photos, and therefore the images aren’t links that take you somewhere else. Instagram is the perfect place to dive in search of inspiration because of the enormous number of photos it gives you access to.
There are also two ways to search for content within this network.
– Follow accounts: To see new photos uploaded by the accounts you like or are interested in most in your timeline, you have to follow them. However, you don’t have to follow an account to view it because although Instagram gives you the option of creating a private account, the vast majority are public. For example, if you follow our Instagram account, you’ll be able to see our new photos and updates on the home page—updates we don’t always share on other networks.
It will also be very useful to look at whom we follow from our account, because it’s a good way to access similar accounts.
– Search by hashtags: The famous hashtags or tags are the tool that will let you narrow down the topic and search for more specific things. Because they’re tagged, all Instagram photos form a huge archive that you can consult at any time. As with Pinterest, tell the search engine what interests you and it will show you exactly what you want to see.
With these two apps, you can spend hours looking at photo after photo full of original ideas and creations, so you can start looking for image inspiration and never have that feeling of creative emptiness again.