Can blogging help you develop your taste?
And why would that be useful?
Once upon a time (read: before a tiny human disrupted everything) I used to run a blog. It was called Antique Owl and I’ve never entirely been sure why other than that maybe I saw an Owl once while out shopping… or somehow maybe all Owls are antique, I don’t know.
I wrote there between 2011 and 2016, a lot at first and then increasingly less frequently. It was a place where I played and tried out writing in a safe space with very little glare from the outside world.
Using the vague construct that I could go out and look at unusual, esoteric or just odd things in little vintage, antique and charity shops, it tied into a trend for vintage that was popular at the time. It was also probably fuelled by everyone starting to get camera phones, and the inception of Instagram, which meant that suddenly normal people like me could take photos, use filters to create a particular style to the look and feel, and develop a sort of proto-brand that could be used elsewhere.
At that point too, Instagram was a very different beast. Much less polished and with smaller spheres of influence. I had a few close connections on there and people that I made friends with then are still people I follow now. They were people who found my penchant for finding and photographing random objects endearing. In short: my people.
When I look at this site now I do cringe at some of the writing, the quality of the images etc. but like I said, it was a good playground for me, and I believe it helped me to develop.
I learned a lot because as I picked up things and investigated them, I started to understand more about design styles that I liked, what aesthetically worked for me, and I discovered some makers or styles that I wouldn’t have come to learn about otherwise. I had an interest in design as far back as school, but my school didn’t have many books on design and few related opportunities. So other than a vague understanding of some of the most well known styles or designers, I really had no clue.
The screenshot below is a case in point, I bought this lovely Stavangerflint dish (which i still use) even though I’d never heard of Stavangerflint or even Stavanger (NB. It’s a place in Norway). When I got home I was able to research the designer, look into their other styles, and find out more about the makers. Somehow past me even worked in the open and showed my mistakes using strikethroughs to amend blogs as I learned more about items.
Generally speaking I learned that I was mostly interested in painted or designed ceramics, some glass, though most often I couldn’t afford glass. And very often (maybe because of availability?) Scandinavian or European. Generally anything featuring a graphic design would be for me, or animal motifs, or something that felt very distinctly ‘of an era’ particularly mid-century. Larger repetitive patterns and things with type would also always be up there.
This curiosity pushed me outside of my comfort zone, forced me to really look and look hard at the things around me, and helped me to curate images that:
- would work online (at the time really limited to Instagram and my blog)
- had an interesting composition (did you know, the square images that instagram forced us into back then forced simpler and better composition?), and,
- my small circle of followers would enjoy.
I learned a lot through this about what was possible and what worked for me.
I also discovered designers and artists like Cathrineholm, Tom Eckersley, Eric Ravilious, Krenit Denmark, Eames (yes I didn’t know about Eames), Marimekko, and more that I wouldn’t have come across otherwise.
As time went on the blog stopped being a useful place for me to play, partly because getting out and about became more difficult, but also because having learned a little I was able to think more about the modern stuff I was consuming. The blog started to feel restrictive and I wanted a space I could just post about anything I found interesting.
When I started posting on Medium some of this stuck and I still felt a need to gather and curate the things I was then consuming online. I started little tumblr-esque posts where I pulled together the bits I’d screenshotted by illustrators or artists I’d discovered on my travels through the internet. You’ll find an example here:
Doing this lead me to another understanding. I increasingly was drawn to real world environments, architecture and also things that were stupid and funny. I also had an eye for composition in way I wouldn’t have had previously.
These taught me more about illustration, risograph, screenprinting and more about graphic design.
So what?
As I’ve been pulling this post together there’s something in my brain which has been asking “why are you writing this?” and I’m not sure entirely what my point is. I’m interested in revisiting how I got where I am as I look for a new role and think about how I got here. Writing on this blog has always been my way of understanding myself, or learning ways of communicating about myself.
The other part of me tells me that, if not taste, I’ve at least developed preference and awareness through this kind of looking, curation and sharing. That’s a skill that I wouldn’t really have recognised as such, but it’s an important one. It’s satiated my curiosity, my desire to research and learn more, plus I think it’s probably also built some neural pathways which help me to make strange connections, look at things differently and spot patterns.
I think has been beneficial through my working life as I tackle problems and work out how to solve them. Having looked at a lot of different aesthetic stuff also means I can spot when things don’t look quite right, and even if I’m just knocking something up in Miro, there are certain principles I adhere to which help me keep it looking okay even if I couldn’t knock up a magazine spread in InDesign or a poster in Photoshop. It’s not Graphic design, more graphic awareness, it’s a fun hobby and I’m unlikely to change any time soon.
If you’re interested in this blog (and you’ve stayed with me) you might enjoy these articles, thank you for reading.
