I studied Graphic communications at university. Creating physical and tantalizing things has always been a major draw in my life. When I got to university though, this was not the most important thing they had to teach us.

Seeing was.

Not looking around when you cross the road, and definitely not googling- but actually taking in what is around you. The late great Alan Fletcher once said; ‘Our eye sleeps until our mind wakes it with a question.’

So in the first week of the first year they set us a project called hidden faces*. And we were let loose on our new hometown of Bath for an entire week. The aim of the project was to present just 5 pictures back on the following Monday morning. These pictures had to be accidently composed portraits. We had to find faces within inanimate objects, architecture, plant life- literally anywhere. So like good students we sat in the pub that night/afternoon, scratched our heads a little and thought ‘god this uni larks going to be easy’ 5 pictures – no problem!

This did actually turn out to be a problem because after a couple of days sitting smugly in our dorms feeling far too clever for the task we realized looking for something that could be anywhere/everywhere is actually incredibly difficult. Because seeing is a lot harder than anyone gives anyone any credit for. Day to day we all just notice things that are directly relevant to our daily lives. In order to get through a day we reduce our environments down to a visual muzak. So trying to find something that could be anywhere and doesn’t have an exact form can be exhausting. It is however incredibly rewarding.

On that Sunday, when I learn to open my eyes a little better I found an elephant’s head in a dustman’s cleaning trolley! Which to most sounds ridiculous but was a massive achievement. I had probably walked past the man cleaning up the autumn leaves for three days and never seen it. I had been walking past these types of trolleys all my life and never looked at one- and there it was a smiley happy looking elephants face staring right up at me! (sadly this picture was lost to a computer meltdown a couple of years  ago, but trust me it was great)

I still look for faces to this day (above is a post box in Paris December 2011 & a Poundshop trip last week) - I also set little tasks for myself. At the moment I am collecting the most depressed looking Christmas trees. Last month I tried to see if I could collect a specific type of red. By constantly trying to train my eyes to remove the everyday blinkers, I have found so much inspiration and opportunity outside of any conventional channels that I go to in my daily life.

I suggest everyone should ‘play’ the hidden faces game. It sounds simple but it so so much harder than you think. You will find very quickly that children are substantially better than you, that’s because their mind has not built up the prisms of culture and language that we all see the world through. And you will get very strange looks when you take a photo of a hand dryer that is definitely winking at you. But it’s a great fun simple way to start training your subconscious to stop filtering out what actually may be incredibly useful to you. In whatever you do who knows what problems you may spark a solution for – that really will make you smile!

* Hidden Faces was based around the same project  by the esteemed Daniel Eatock in his book imprint. Eatock is a collect-o-maniac of life, he sees the world and collects the beautiful mundane. And has fun with the world around him. If you want to learn more go to http://www.eatock.com/ or watch his AIGA lecture http://www.aiga.org/video-makethink-2009-eatock/

One Response to “Hidden Faces”

1. Tower of tubes — eatbigfish says: February 3, 2012 at 5:52 pm

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