The 47th Precinct

I adore ideation tools. Whether or not they help me define a color palette or find synonyms, I appreciate how they help ideas pop out of the ether or consolidate wandering thoughts, inspiring bigger and broader concepts.

I have a couple of tools that I will someday build, which includes: the odd word generator (much like a thesaurus, but more of an anecdote for writer’s block), a visual elements dictionary (I have an incredible marks and patterning book from the closing of the Victor Hugo bookshop that could begin the collection), and more. Admittedly, these are a little eclectic and clearly skewed towards my ruminating tendencies. More general in audience and interest would be tools that source images on the web, and one resource that seems to inspire endless tools is, of course, both a great source and research tool itself: Flickr!

Here are a few of my favorites:

Retrievr : search flickr via drawing a mini sketch of your idea

Compfight : enter a search term, get a full page of themed source

Spell with Flickr : enter a word and get a photo for each individual letter. Immediately sources signpainting, typography, etc. and you can click on a specific letter (i.e. if the H in “DHL” just doesn’t satisfy). Plus, you get the html code for your composite word!

Flickrgraph : As you can sadly see, most of these photos aren’t loading for me thanks to my lovely home connection… but I give this little app the benefit of the doubt. Like the visual dictionary, I love how this shows webs of connection through your flickr contacts. Details about a contact shows their popular tags and a snippet of their photos. GREAT!

And… an old favorite…

Airtight Interactive’s flickr tag browser : a lovely tool (big aesthetic points) which shows both images with your selected tag and related tags for further exploration.

This entry was posted Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Design Tool, Good Ideas, Photography. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.