This is one of the most important videos I’ve ever made for people that are struggling to build their business, content, or brand! Let me show you how to use Pinterest for product design inspiration – the quick and easy way.
Get inspired!
Watch my TikTok short on using Pinterest for product design inspiration below, or scroll to read the expanded version now:
Why Creators Struggle to Build
I firmly believe that the biggest reason why people – and dudes in particular – struggle to build out their core concepts into a viable business or brand is because they just aren’t obsessed enough.
I talk to a lot of people every day who have good ideas and content… but have only rudimentary (or none at all!) knowledge and understanding about aesthetics. To be clear, this isn’t about the product’s design or packaging; it’s about displaying the product in the right way so it attracts enough attention to sell in this loud, overwhelming, online world.
At the end of the day, it’s about knowing how to make something look good and appealing to your audience. Getting people to gravitate towards your adverts, your products, your shared content can be a daunting task if you’re not sure where to begin or how to go about it.
Don’t stress… There’s a pretty easy solution to this.
Zooming in on Aesthetics
Lockdown and the pandemic taught us many things about our creativity. Out of necessity, we started creating brands and products, right from our kitchen tables. We learned to write and communicate in ways we’d never done before. And we learned to use apps like Skype and hold Zoom meetings with loved ones and colleagues.
In using Zoom to connect with everyone, backgrounds and green screens became the focus of just about every connection. We downloaded backdrops, used wallpapers, and isolated ourselves in blurry backgrounds. We leaned in to the new normal and embraced the technology at face value.
But after a while, that faded. Backgrounds got old and we stopped paying attention to what was displayed behind us. When was the last time you noticed what was behind you while on camera?
Well, now you’re going to have sit up and notice it. You’re going to have to lean in… I mean, really lean in… to the aesthetics around you, your brand, your products.
Today’s content-rich world – and particularly TikTok – makes you end up going down endless, pointless rabbit holes sometimes. Scroll, swipe left, dismiss.
But if you end up in the right kind of rabbit holes, you see that people just have beautiful aesthetic environments behind them. They seem to always be surrounded by things which are interesting and pristine.
This isn’t something that just happens. Rather, it’s something that’s created.
It’s a return to the attention to detail we used to put in to our Zooms back in lockdown. It’s been created from an obsession with particular aesthetics, with things that look good, and that’s why people gravitate towards it.
This is about building your objects, surroundings, and day-to-day inspiration to match the beauty and usability you want your brand to represent. It’s taking a step closer to understanding what makes a good brand great from a visual perspective, so people are drawn to it, and gravitate towards it because it’s just so appealing to them.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
The biggest red flag for me when I go to an entrepreneur’s or a creator’s house is when they don’t have source books and design inspiration just surrounding them. How do they get inspired by nothing?
If your default mode isn’t to be engaging with something that’s inspirational to you visually, then how do you expect to understand the visual aesthetic of what’s going to succeed
around you? You have to tailor your consumption to where visual aesthetics are presenting themselves to at all times.
This is how you begin to understand what people like and what they gravitate towards. You identify with other personas just like yours, with their likes and dislikes. You build the aesthetics of your brand and its image around this understanding, this empathy, this … commonality of visual appeal.
A lot of doing this just involves changing the basics of how you use the internet. Unbelievable. Can it be that easy?
Drawing Inspiration From Online Sources
There are a number of places you could draw your product design inspiration from:
- your “Discovery” feed
- what apps you gravitate to and how you use them
- and actually engaging with content online
But perhaps the biggest hack I’ve found for those who don’t consider themselves to be a creative or aesthetic person, is to use Pinterest to do the work for you.
How?.
Customizing Your Pinterest Feed to Keep You Focused
By now you know my Pinterest is customized to the max. When I open it up, I’m surrounded by all the things I’m interested in or working on:
- I do a 1ot of packaging for my products
- I work a lot in racing, sport, and adjacent industries
- Fashion, streetwear, footwear, and sportswear
- Jewelry and accessories
- Interiors and related design issues
The list goes on, and my feed is literally just a straight algorithm of all of that, as it’s presented to me. I grab visual inspiration at any point in time from what my Pinterest delivers to me. It’s the same for all my social media accounts, actually.
The more you feed the algorithms what you like, the more you search for things that interest you, and the more things you add to your libraries, the more the algorithms will suggest what you like to you.
Pinterest is a tool. You need to use it to look at the brands you’re competing with or the creators you aspire to be. Take a virtual step back from what is on your feed, and really look at:
- what they’re wearing
- what they’re using to make their points
- the spaces they’re inhabiting
and begin putting those design pieces into your own brand messages, videos, and live feeds.
The Benefits of Using Pinterest for Product Design Inspiration
Changing the way you browse the internet and going about your searches with real intent and purpose means you’re going to begin to understand the patterns and more better visually identify with what can actually stand out for your customers.
There are hundreds of other things around your content and in your business that can make a difference. Engaging with your feed in a way so it delivers you the aesthetics you like over and over again will help you recognize the patterns other people just like you also look for in your brand, in your competitor’s products, and in potential markets you have yet to identify.
What I’ve really noticed is that when you have that “it” factor and that understanding of look and feel the multiples just get higher. Naturally.
You get higher return on ad spend, and higher organic visibility online. This means you could actually end up in a place where selling your business becomes a viable option because it has that intangible factor to it.
All you need is to get it to that place where the “wow” factor of your aesthetics appeals to the people who are going to buy your products from you.
BONUS MATERIAL!
Catch the Builders.Build podcast with my best friends, Colin and James, to discover more about our individual TikTok perspectives and entrepreneurial journeys across brands, products, websites, and more.
Thank you for reading about how to use Pinterest for product design inspiration!
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– Oren
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