Find A New Way Of Seeing In Five Steps

Look out for the simple shapes and patterns that surround you, and notice how they occur in everything that is around us – from square window grids and circular drain covers to stripy shadows.

Observe the forms of the world around you, and how they connect to create function and flow. If you have time, try letting a shape, like a circle, lead the way. Let your curiosity and intuition lead you as you observe up close and far away. 

Look up, look down, look around and take just 15 minutes out of your day to try these five simple ways to find inspiration everywhere. We promise you’ll be inspired by the patterns you start discovering all around you…

1. Notice More

How often do you notice the magnificent in the mundane? Have you ever stopped to see how shadows make patterns all around us on sunny days? Or taken a second on your drizzly commute to marvel at the technicolor swirls of diesel that make rainbows within puddles? Have you ever noticed how the tiny bubbles in a glass of water are reminiscent of a starry sky?

2. Delight In Daily Details

Look up, look down, look around. What do you see? From pylons to bricks to tessellated tiles, patterns are everywhere.

Living life with more curiosity can lead us to joyful adventures in perception. To delight in the details of the day-to-day is to become more mindful and to live more fully in the moment. By paying more attention, we begin to open our eyes to a new way of seeing that extends into other areas of our lives.
This quiet observation and understanding of pattern can help us to find clarity and contentment amidst the overload.

3. Enjoy Everyday Excellence

See the fleeting shadows cast through railings onto the pavement below. Take in the reflections projected on the architecture above our heads. Look at the sweeping lines of train tracks. Excellence really is everywhere. To notice these fleeting occurrences is to remember the simplicity and beauty of the everyday. It can fill even the most ordinary journey with inspiration and wonder.

4. Notice Non-places

Locate the cracks and crevices around you; the places where lines meet and diverge. Spot where nature creeps into our urban environment or the sky passing gently through scaffold outlines.

Often the best ideas hide in the places we forget to consider: the blind spots that appear throughout our daily lives. However, if we look through the correct lens, even the most mundane of places can inspire and intrigue. Simply noticing more breaks the ‘autopilot’ habit, which so often blinds us to the beauty in the banal. Slowing down can transform the way we engage with the everyday.

5. See The Spaces Between

Shift from seeing the objects around you to the spaces that define them. Context is all. Pay attention to the gaps, the holes, the light and dark, the sight lines that define how we see the world around us. What relationships do you see between the books on your shelf or the buildings on your morning commute?

Often it’s not the ‘things’ themselves that offer the most inspiration, but the spaces in between them. And these spaces are anything but empty. These are the patterns that, in our hurry to get from A to B, we often overlook. Yet to miss these is in some ways, to miss everything.