How to Build an Archive of Images (for Artists, Designers, Stylists) 

I remember when I first started using Pinterest as a young teenager and I’d “waste” hours on it. Now it’s my job ❤️

i watched this just to make sure i have the idea down. i’ve been archiving things for YEARS across tumblr, pinterest, and insta. i am so excited this will be a part of my journey to collect all the images i’ve been drawn to for inspiration. i knew i needed to be an online hoarder for a reason 🥴

I’ve always wanted to start something along the lines of this and you have given me the motivation to start thank you bliss:)

Also in addition, magazine covers, especially period magazines like "Le Parisienne". Thats where I get my color palette interest from. I also like other kinds of visual art like book covers, abandoned mineshafts, apocalyptica, and stuff related to gothic fiction. Also for certain pins, like color palettes and your illustrations, if you have the skills, a personal jekyll blog.

As an artist, I save images on my Pinterest boards that caught my eye, ideas I would want to replicate in my artwork or use as a reference down the line. whether it be a combination of textures, designs, The way the light reflected on a certain part of the body to reveal the muscle structure. Or a series of compositions in different images I can reference to later on to create the “IDEAL” composition for one of my paintings. Or it could be as simple as “I like the colours that were captured in this photo”.

I'm not a designer or anything (I make music), but I've been doing this for a decade on many different platforms. I used to call this "categorized digital hoarding" 😂 Now I'm going to call it an archive. Thank you for your videos, they're gems, even for those who aren't in fashion!

My suggestion, and this may be kind of dated to some because of cloud storage, but: invest in an external hard drive!!! This gives you the opportunity to put EVERYTHING in ONE place. ALL media files; videos, pictures, music, text documents,. whatever you need can be on this small portable and inexpensive block. I use this for my Rick Owens archive which includes thousands of examples of all the resources I mentioned above.

this video is so underrated, this is something that everyone/ every artist would benefit from doing !

I have already been doing this for quite a while. But totally unstructed. Thanks for giving some guidelines. I will try to bring more structure to my archives.

Perfect timing! Thank you 🙏

Extremely cool collection love those green elves at 1:18 - curating images feels like the type of thing that would be "easy" but when you see people who do it REALLY well like this you realize how much care goes into curating something unique and special, very much tumblr vibes.

Thank you for this.. I’ve always done it, because I art/junk journal, I didn’t realize it was an actual thing. I mean I knew people kept pictures and cut-outs or whatever, I also love to collage ❤

In self isolation rn, binge watching Bliss Foster videos. Life is good

it’s really funny that you posted this today because for the past few months ive been putting images on a board in pinterest to print out and put all along my wall(basically making an archive without even knowing) and i just got the motivation to start printing them out yesterday bc of the quarantine

I think this is really helpful, I'm a fashion student and this sort of archive (specially pinterest) helps me a lot while I`m working on my creative process.

If been big on using pintrest for this sort of stuff for a while. My boards are pretty broad and messy but i do like the idea of being able to see how your taste evolve over time because it always fascinates me what kind of things i loved a couple months or years ago.

I do love Pinterest. It has been a while since I have been active on it, but this video is inspiring me to get back on track. I have a lot of categories. I have notebooks and notebooks of of interior images. I love interiors as much as I love clothes and fragrance, movement and art. Anyway, it is nice for me to have something tactile to look through and curate over time. Unfortunately I have not made notes about when I collected a certain image, and now I kind of wish I had after listening to your suggestion, but often, I can roughly remember when I found an image. I am actually only speaking about the physical images, rather than the virtual ones. I notice that my taste does not really change, it just expands as I learn about or see something new or in a way that I have not seen it before. Oddly enough, I am feeling more inspired and hopeful than I have in several months, and it is at a time when the world seems to be falling apart. I appreciate this content, because it reminds me that art is important, and no matter what is going on, creativity absolutely needs to be expressed and appreciated.

Man...you are amazing!

About to start a project that requires me to paint 9 paintings, and this came at the perfect time!

I like to hoard information and photos, so my 1 terabyte external hard drive is my friend for this exact reason.

this gives me the motivation to restart using tumblr! thank you!

AAAAAGH I NEEDED THIS. i have stuff across sooo many social media. photos across instagram, pinterest, google chrome bookmarks, stuff saved on my phone and computer desktop...it’s all so disorganized. thanks for the amazing content again! 🙏🏽

you are simply awesome

I subbed last night and had to resub again today.

This is amazing. I have one myself I’ve been building on for 4 years.

Def Gonna do this

I have found the ability to make sub catagories on pininterest as well as being able to save one thing to multiple catagories it fits under super usefull

Is there the bliss foster of photography and film on RU-vid? Like I got into fashion because of Bliss. Bliss talks about fashion while being aware of subjectivity. Bliss talks as a creator of art and an observer of art but not as a person that is trying to sell you a specific philosophy or approach to it. Like if you like this, you like this. If you want to get into this, this might be a good start but you do you.

I love you so much

Thank u!!!!!

Ilysm, mwah

Coincidentally!

Hey bliss, loved the video. I was curious if there is any way of finding the source of an image because i have 200-300 images saved on my phone that inspire me but i really want to find where they come from but ive been struggling.

Can I ask where you store this archive? For example is it just a Folder on your laptop and in that you have all the categories and images or is there an app or something else you prefer? I tend to use pinterest for now but I like the idea of actually saving it so it feels personal. Love the vid as an aspiring designer :)

im really wondering where i can find the b&w portraits shown in the thumbnail of the video. thank you so much.

😭you are the best

Okay, now I want to follow you on Pinterest. :)

that photo of faye wong in that transparent plastic dress!!

I’ve been wanting to do this with films, but streaming services don’t let you screen shot. I just watched Boiling Point by Takeshi Kitano and the outfits in the film are so 🔥🔥🔥. I just wanted a visual reference 🥺🥺🥺

Id love to see the worn sneakers folder!

where does one save or store so much images i really want to start one but i have no clue where to keep them all please help!

where do you create the archive? Like is it in photos somewhere or pinterest or somewhere else?

I like doing this at instagram I have ten or 15 years of photos of styles and designers I love sharing photos

💗💗

I do screen shots daily, tumblr, etc. I love images, photos, etc. 4ever. @

wanted to check out who you follow but I can't find your profile, any chance I could get your pinterest name?

Wow

can you upload all of it?

What is the point of the archive

✂📍💗

번역해서 듣고싶다..

aye boss

if anyone wants images to reference i run a lil instagram archive - @narcissus_blooming :)

uh so what’s ur pinterest?👁👄👁