Before I make, I look.
I used to confuse looking with collecting. I’d open a browser, save fifty images, and call the result research. My collection grew; my understanding did not.
Now I try to begin with a question. What am I actually trying to understand? What has become so familiar that no one sees it anymore? What does a person need to know, feel, or do—and in what order? The question doesn’t need to point toward an answer. It only needs to give my looking a shape.
I start near the subject. If I’m working on a corporate report, I look at reports. I need to understand the form before I decide what to do with it.
Then I move farther away. I might look at newspapers, maps, instruction manuals, or paintings. A newspaper knows how to handle density. A map knows how to hold several scales at once. A painting may know something useful about directing the eye.
I’m not looking for a style to borrow. I’m trying to notice what something is doing. When I save a reference, I write down why.
The note is at least as useful as the image. It gives me enough distance to carry the idea somewhere else without copying its appearance.
Then I arrange what I’ve found and start removing things. One reference tells me what I like. Several references placed together begin to reveal what I think. The one that doesn’t fit is often worth keeping around. Or it may be pointing to something the rest of the collection has politely avoided.
Time helps too. I’m easily persuaded by novelty and veneer. If I leave the references alone for a day, some become less convincing; a few become more interesting.
Eventually, I make something, usually before I feel ready. A rough sketch shows whether an observation can survive contact with actual words, scale, and use. If it can’t, no matter how cute it is, it gets tossed off the cliff.
So my system isn’t very complicated: begin with a question, look outside the category, name what matters, arrange, remove, make, and look again. The point is not to build an impressive moodboard. It’s to notice enough that a decision becomes easier.