Many Aesthetics Wiki readers and people exposed to aesthetic culture in general may wonder what it means to "have" an aesthetic. This article will guide readers on how to find and explore aesthetics and how to participate in online aesthetic communities. What this means generally differs from what people think an aesthetic is, as well as...
"I want to know what vibes/impression I give off in real life."[]
The people asking this are typically thinking in terms of character tropes, fashion styles, subcultures, and stereotypes.
"I want to explore different aesthetics and see what catches my eye."[]
The wiki is the perfect place for this! Because of the ability to find articles by moodboards (albeit highly limited), colors commonly used, general adjectives to describe the aesthetic, and how the aesthetic is used online or in real life, you can easily find pages that you like. Readers of the wiki often like to browse pages and look at the galleries to comment on the Discord server or in the Fandom forum about aesthetics they like or dislike.
You don't have to participate in the community or assume the aesthetic's fashion or lifestyle. Many people admire other people's aesthetics while still liking and keeping their own. But simply knowing what different aesthetics are can be fun in and of itself.
There won't be any advice here, because liking something is fairly straightforward. If you want to narrow down your likes and dislikes, these are the things that could help you describe what you like:
- Colors and a color palette
- General periods of art history and design periods
- This does not have to be specific, but general descriptors like "classical" and "art deco" are good basics
- Stereotypes of important decades and nations such as the Victorian England and 1950's America.
- Adjectives that specify the qualitative and emotional qualities
- Some examples of good adjectives are: masculine, geometric, sexy, campy, sweet, etc.
- Materials such as wood, types of fabric, and types of metal
- Design motifs commonly found in different fields such as fashion and architecture
- Some examples include: bishop sleeves, Ionic columns, embroidery, and orchids
"I want to participate in the online aesthetic community/subculture"[]
How to create a moodboard[]
- Finding photos is the first step of making a moodboard. To do so, look up subjects or aesthetics that you like. These can be normal rectangles or a transparent. A transparent is an image that has no background and is typically in the PNG format. These images are typically used for scrapbook-style and outfit moodboards, as they allow for layering, showing the background, and different shapes. One can make a transparent by taking an image and erasing any undesired parts with an art software program. Transparents are also shared on social media and outfit moodboard sites, and are free to use according to the OP's description. One can simply find them via searching "moodboard transparent" or "PNG" on tumblr or Pinterest.
- Select the photos that you want to use in the moodboard. Commonly, one uses a variety of subjects and different qualities that have similarities and contrasts that fit together pleasingly. The colors of the images create a color palette. Multiple creators base their moodboards on themes such as named aesthetics that would be found on the wiki, characters, periods of history, locations, etc. This is not necessary, but a moodboard typically has a unified vision that is communicated through the images.
- Choose a format. This will be described below.
- Use a computer program or app to play around with the arrangement. These include but are not limited to: Adobe Spark, Canva, LINE Camera, Google Slides, Crello, etc. This is a very free-form and subjective process that requires resizing, cropping, and playing around with the arrangement of images, and finding/deleting any photos as necessary. Negative space is an important element, and how cluttered or far apart the elements are is your decision.
Types of Moodboards[]
Note: The names of the style of moodboards is unofficial, and is only used for wiki-writing purposes. People do not generally label their moodboards by these names and these categories from observations of online aesthetic culture.
A grid-style moodboard
Grids and columns are the most popular ways to create moodboards. They are a collection of images that are cropped into equally sized rectangles or squares. The two most common formats are a square of three columns and three rows or a long rectangle with two columns and as many rows as the OP sees fit. The user either edits the images to make a moodboard that appears as a single image (such as the one on the left) or uploads the images individually onto a single tumblr post, which automatically places images into a grid. Because of this ease, grids are the most common type on tumblr.
A scrapbook-style moodboard
Digital scrapbook pages use both photos and transparent images and allows for free-form arrangement with different sized photos and subjects. In this method, the user takes a blank page and layers found images and transparents over each other, with how cluttered or empty it is being up to preference.
An outfit moodboard
Outfit moodboards revolve around an outfit, with a few other objects or doodles that would enhance the look of the clothing. This was done on the now-defunct website Polyvore[1], but the community has now scattered into different websites that could be found here. These moodboards are more fashion-based and depend entirely on transparent images to allow for layering and cohesion. The original purpose of these moodboards is also less fantasy-based, with many people and sites using this method as a way to document clothes that they already have or are going to buy.
Character collages are like outfit moodboards in that they revolve around transparent images of clothing and other items, but they contain added text that conveys personality traits, habits, and conditions that would be in bullet points, sentence fragments close to the transparents, or text imposed over the objects. Character qualities would be typically shown through symbolic objects. For example, a character who is fond of gardening would have a watering can in the collage. As mentioned above, this is a common trope in Instagram and Pinterest.
Object collections are mooboards composed of various transparents that do not revolve around an outfit, but rather multiple trinkets associated with an aesthetic. The composition of these moodboards would be more cluttered and often times abstract in comparison to the other forms.
How to create an aesthetic blog[]
An aesthetic blog is a place to store your inspirations, discuss your aesthetic with other people, and find ideas. The best place for aesthetic blogging is typically image-based websites such as Pinterest, tumblr, VSCO, and Instagram. The video-sharing site TikTok is a popular place to share video moodboards, which are rapid-fire flashing images set to music and aesthetic memes such as outfit showcases.
A pinterest board
Simply search for images and collect them in a board/reblog, and follow people who produce content you like.
Websites such as Pinterest and tumblr allow you to save images created by other people into your own blog, which allows you to create a giant, free-form moodboard like the one on the right. Tags and different boards allow you to separate inspirations for separate aesthetics that you like or have different images for different categories, such as fashion or quotes.
Different blogs may also advertise a Discord or another type of group chat that you can join, which allows you to share your aesthetic and create new friends.
A journal in the kawaii aesthetic.
How to create a journal[]
There are multiple forms of a journal, and of course there are different ones depending on what the purpose of it is, such as a sketchbook, a pure way to express your feelings, or a way to keep track of life goals such as productivity or health. Of course, this section is going to discuss keeping an aesthetic journal, but you are free to combine it with other journal purposes listed above.
Note that journaling is going to be more expensive than the ones listed above, especially since journal culture promotes having multiple pens, stickers, and stationary. Of course, there are ways to do it cheaply, such as purchasing secondhand, DIY, etc.
- Determine what size, format, and appearance you want your notebook to be. A tiny black Moleskine is going to have a different function and feel from a yolk-yellow spiral notebook the size of your face. Knowing what aesthetic you want ahead of time and your level of commitment is necessary before shopping.
- Decide what you want to include in your journal. How planned out you want it to be depends on your personal preference, and you can add whatever wherever. Some ideas of things to include are:
- Decorate your journal to what suits your tastes, whether with layers of stickers or just plain handwriting. Some ideas are:
- Washi tape to "secure" boxes of information
- Stickers
- Patterned paper cut into shapes
- Colored paper to write different information on
A Note on Subcultures[]
Please note that subcultures differ from internet aesthetic communities. They involve a greater amount of participation, and most definitely require doing things in real life, such as attending concerts, meet-ups, having friends in the subculture, knowing traditions and knowledge mandatory to the community, wearing the fashion, etc. Many subcultures also require people in it to have certain traits and beliefs too, such as in skills, political beliefs, personality traits, or not having certain traits that would bar them from being accepted in the community.
Subcultures also require some form of hierarchy and "gatekeeping." People who have been in the aesthetic for a longer time have opinions gained from experience, so their opinions tend to be listened to and must be followed to an extent in order to participate.
How to participate in the subculture depends entirely on the community. For example, some have fashion components, while others do not. Some are more open, while others are more closed off. Because of this, you must learn from experience if you want to join a subculture, as opposed to many online aesthetics that do not require any learning. The best source for knowing how to get involved is not the wiki, but rather blogs, guides, and articles written by people already highly involved in the subculture. Many subcultures also have their own wiki, so check those out too. It's also recommended to check out non-participants' impressions of how a community functions, such as in journalism documenting such people, to see if the community's values and practices may fit with yours.