How to Find, Research, and Organize Visual References

Detailed breakdown of Composition's curation process, with the tools and resources to build your own visual reference archive.

It’s pretty often that when I meet someone in real life who follows or knows about Composition, many people will consistently ask me, “Where do you find the things you post?”

To which I typically respond: “I don’t really have one specific place that I go to discover projects.” It then leaves the person I am talking to either confused or disappointed in the response, as they are typically hoping for some magical reservoir of infinitely beautiful projects to uncover for themselves upon my verbal release of this heavily coveted information. But it’s the truth. There isn’t one place to go to find these things.

My process consists of a myriad of strategies, most of which are a bit too complex to explain verbally upon first impression of meeting someone. With that being said, in this article, I am going to outline the strategies I use to consistently find beautiful projects to feature on Composition.

My hope is that you can use these strategies in your own practice to increase your internal Reference Bank. This isn’t something I have ever heard anyone articulate, but the concept is simple. Have you ever met someone who seems to have a near encyclopedic level of knowledge around a certain subject? For example, I have one friend who is a music producer, shoutout Vik. Because of his deep understanding of music, specifically hip-hop/rap instrumentals, since that is the type of music he produces, whenever I play him a song, he is able to go in-depth and explain the choices behind the instrumental that the producer made. He can hear specific samples in the music and tell me where the sample originated from, what effects have been overlayed onto it, how it was incorporated into the production, and, in some cases, exactly what artist or song the sample came from.

Vik didn’t build his knowledge base by passively listening on shuffle. He intentionally consumed music in a way that led him to seek out the history and context behind everything he listened to. Over time, that accumulation became something almost encyclopedic; his understanding of music as a whole deepens, which allows him to identify these things when certain songs are played, leading him to be able to explain these unique structures that only a producer can identify, because he studied it.

That’s what a Reference Bank is. It’s the mental archive you build when you don’t just look at something compelling and keep scrolling. It develops when you stop, research it, understand where it came from, and file it away. The deeper your bank, the more your own creative instincts have to draw from.

Developing your internal Reference Bank will help you find inspiration for your own creative process, whether to use these projects as direct references in your own artistic practice, to merely increase your own cultural and visual awareness, or to discover more details and information about projects you have seen only a glimpse of, either online or in person.

The strategies below are the ones I actually use, in the order I use them, starting with the first change I made, which shifted how I consume everything I see. Using this process, I've found over 2,200 projects to feature on Composition over the past six years.

Curate Your Algorithm

This is probably the most useful part of my process. It is not something I would have recommended even 3-4 years ago, but as the algorithms on social apps have shifted to the “For You” structure from primarily populating your feed from accounts you actually follow, I have found that this format allows for the surfacing and discovery of content specifically to your tastes. This, obviously, can be a good and a bad thing, and with the current sentiment online, it seems as if creators have a real problem with this. I see it as an opportunity to discover projects that I otherwise would not have seen if this weren’t the case.

So how do you do this tactically?

Start by approaching consumption on these platforms in a more intentional way than you would have before. In practice, this looks like:

• Like and save anything that you see that provokes you visually.

  • Single photos that are composed well.

  • Well-designed or compiled carousels.

  • High-quality and well-produced videos or reels that captivate you.

• Create collections of saved posts you can revisit for reference.

  • Some examples of collections I created and use for reference:

    • Fine Art

      • Comprised of paintings, sculptures, and installations, I find particularly compelling

    • Photography

      • Single photos or carousels of particularly strong photo work

    • Design

      • Graphics from brands or companies that I think are well designed

    • Clothes

      • Lookbooks and product shots of pieces that I would wear or want to buy

    • Interiors

      • Extremely well-designed and decorated spaces that have elements I could incorporate into my home

    • Objects

      • Various useful objects that are well-designed and fit my personal tastes

      • Examples in my folder: Coffee Maker, Water Bottle, Computer Mouse, Film Camera, Sunscreen, etc.

    • Furniture/Home Goods

      • Elevated furniture pieces and home goods that would fit the aesthetic of my home

      • Examples in my folder: Lounge Chair, Incense Tray, Sofa, Medicine Cabinet, Towels

    • Art Direction

      • Campaigns, product shots, video series, and reels from companies that are tastefully executed

    • Cities

      • Restaurants, stores, cafes, architecture, museums, galleries and other spaces I either plan to visit or have visited in the cities I go to often

      • Examples of city collections I have created: Miami, New York, Mexico City, LA, Tokyo, Berlin

All of these folders exist across my Instagram, TikTok, and X profiles to make the process familiar to me, no matter the platform I am consuming on.

If you begin to utilize these strategies, over time, you will find that the algorithms get much better at serving you content that they know you will like. A save is now weighted much more highly in the algorithm’s eyes than a like, so creating collections you can come back to reference will speed up this process much more than only liking content that you are visually interested in.

How to Go Deeper

Let’s say you have enacted the strategies I just described, and you begin to see some of the work that is catching your attention visually, but you want to understand more about the concept or project. These are the tactics I use to find that information.

If you have the title of a project that you want to research, a standard Google search will typically surface the right information. Now, this only works if a piece is heavily covered in the press, which means the project has to already have garnered a decent amount of attention for a Google search to have an extensive amount of information and context about that project. But you don’t need me to tell you that. So naturally, the next question becomes, “How do you find more information on a project that is much less well known?” Don’t worry, I got you. I haven’t scoured the internet to find over 2,000 Instagram-worthy projects over the past six years for nothing. I will give you all of the shortcuts.