Design rarely becomes more interesting by looking only at other design. It’s easy to build reference folders filled with websites, identities, posters, and campaigns, but after a while those references begin to speak the same visual language.

I find it more useful to look sideways. Architecture can teach you about proportion and rhythm. Cinema can change the way you think about pacing, framing, and atmosphere. Fashion can reveal how an identity can evolve without losing its character. Even something as ordinary as packaging from a supermarket or an old sign on the street can contain an idea worth remembering.

The goal isn’t necessarily to translate these references literally. Most of them will never appear directly in the finished work. They exist more as ingredients—small observations that gradually influence how you see and make decisions.

This also makes research less predictable. Instead of beginning every project by searching for work from the same category, I try to understand the feeling or behaviour we are looking for. A technology company might have more in common with a museum than another technology company. A fashion identity might borrow its structure from a newspaper.

The further the reference is from the expected solution, the more interesting the connection can become.