Last night, I pulled out an old hard drive and started digging deep for some ancient photos that I ended up not finding…because a decade ago, I didn’t yet understand the fine art of file organization!
All that digging ended up paying off in an unexpected way when I found a treasure trove of hand-collaged pages I used to put together in an oversized sketchbook I’d christened the Fashion Notebook. The Fashion Notebook was my style bible I kept from 2000 to around 2008.
Long before Pinterest existed, I’d spend my nights and weekends collaging into the Fashion Notebook, pulling pages of inspiration from the stacks of fashion magazines I always had in my room. To give the pages structure, the focus was always on specific themes, whether it was all black and white, a pop color or a style I was draw to, like plaid, stripes or polkadots.
I started these collages years before I was a graphic designer and in a way, making these layouts trained my eye to zoom in on specific details and play around with compositions long before I knew what the “rules†were. There’s nothing like the art of exploration with no clients, no deadlines and really, nobody watching (social media wasn’t around yet).
It was pure and fun. There were no likes, there were no followers. Looking back, it’s so nice to have something from those years. I actually still have the notebook here in my office and it’s tattered but somehow intact after many moves.
I miss the OG Pinterest! Did any of you keep similar notebooks / scrapbooks?
Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me!
Here’s to creating…just for fun.
Brianna says: 
Creative mediation maybe?
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