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There's a shop in Barcelona that sells vintage prints from artists long gone.
On one of my visits, I found myself completely drawn to the way they used to illustrate flowers, fruits, objects, animals. A real exercise in consistent observation, one that's been lost in a generation that has normalised looking for inspiration in pins.
I do it too. But I believe creativity and art direction deserve more than that.
I once used these archives as references to illustrate natural ingredients for a beverage series with a completely different style, but studying them helped me understand the anatomy of each element.
Where else do you look for inspiration?
Mostly places where the drawing had a job to do: old seed catalogues, pharmacopoeia plates, machine part diagrams. The constraint is the teacher there, someone had to render the thing so it could be identified rather than so it would look good in a grid. The other one for me is...
Exactly! And really glad I'm not the only one who makes the supermarket a must in every new place. 🙌
Must have been a very precious place to visit.
That is so beautiful for inspiration!
Thank you! Hopefully it sparks something good 🙏🏽
The beverage series example is such a good case for this, using botanical archive illustrations for anatomy reference rather than style reference is a completely different muscle than pulling from Pinterest. When you were studying those old prints for the ingredient work, did...
Yes, I actually went in with a clear idea of how an ingredient could look "cool," but studying the archives I realized the real benefit was coming from a part of the plant I hadn't even considered.
This is gorgeous!
I knowww 🥹
Those old botanical plates are a masterclass in observation that no stock library can fake. Wild how a shop full of dead artists still teaches composition better than most courses.
Totally, the constraint of having to be understood is what makes those prints so instructive.
🌼
🥹🥹
bellisimo! I would have my whole house filled with these if I could.
Exacto! Tengo la casa llena de plantas reales pero ganas de estos posters no me faltan 🥹
When translating those meticulous century old botanical details into modern branding how do you decide what to simplify versus what to keep?
Actually it worked the other way around, the brand style was already defined before I went into the archives. So the question wasn't what to simplify, it was what from the reference fit within the system we already had.
Beautiful, thanks for sharing this!
Thank you for taking the time to look 🙏🏽
Amazing workkk! Beautifull
Thank you, glad the references resonated 🙏🏽
This beautiful and am sure the inspiration brought that
The archives really do carry something very inspiring.
Very true. True determination, dedication & integrity to art has been lost in current digital chaos. We lost focus. That's why when we look into our ancestor's works, they made us wondering 'how they did it with limited resources'.
Yes, and that's the beautiful part, we also have the opportunity to create with more intention whenever we choose and more than ever. That freedom didn't always exist.
wow thats looks so nice
Really glad you liked them 🙌🏽
you really did i a good job tho!!!
beautiful
thanks!
Beatiful
thanks!
This is so cool!
Sophisticated
This is excellent
Interesting sites. Thanks for sharing.
beautiful
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