Sourcing Images

Need rewriting

What does "sourcing images" actually mean?

Sourcing images is simply the process of gathering the visual material you'll use to develop and support your project. This might sound straightforward, but the images you choose — and how you get them — have a bigger impact on your work than most students realise.

There are two types of source: primary and secondary. Both have a place in your work, but they're not equal, and knowing the difference matters.

Primary Sources

Images you create or capture yourself — original and unique to your project.

Your own photos
Observational drawings
Sketchbook studies
Close-up photography

Secondary Sources

Images gathered from elsewhere — useful for reference, research, and inspiration.

Internet searches
Books & magazines
Existing artwork
Printed references

Why does this actually matter?

Think of your images as the raw material you're working with. A sculptor needs good stone. A chef needs fresh ingredients. You need images that are interesting, relevant, and rich enough to work with. If you start with weak material, everything you build from it will feel thin.

Images in Graphics aren't decoration — they're tools for thinking. You analyse them, respond to them, develop ideas from them. A single well-chosen photograph can unlock a whole page of design ideas. A blurry screenshot downloaded without thought usually leads nowhere.

Strong projects tend to start with strong visual research. That's not a coincidence.

The quality of your images shapes the quality of your ideas. High-quality, relevant sources give you more to work with — and that shows throughout your project.

How to do it well

This is where you can genuinely separate your work from the average. Most students grab whatever comes up first on Google. If you're more thoughtful than that — even slightly — it shows.

Take your own photos

Even a phone camera is enough. Photograph objects, textures, people, or places connected to your theme. These images are yours — they're original, and no one else has them.

Draw from your photos

Use your photos as the starting point for drawings and studies. Sketching from your own photograph is far more valuable than copying something you found online.

Vary what you shoot

Try different angles, distances, and lighting. A collection of close-ups, wide shots, and details gives you much more creative material than ten similar images.

Choose with intention

Ask yourself: Is this image actually useful? Does it connect to your theme? Is there something interesting about its composition, texture, or colour?

When it comes to secondary sources — images you find online or in books — the key is to use them smartly, not lazily. Finding an image and sticking it on a page doesn't count as research. But finding an image, studying it, annotating it, and letting it inform your own design? That's exactly what these sources are for.

Before you save any image, ask yourself these questions:

Could I crop this to focus on the most interesting part?
Could I edit, trace, or redraw from this rather than just dropping it in?
Does this inspire something — a colour palette, a composition, a concept?
Can I combine ideas from this image with something I've photographed or drawn myself?
Could I actually go and take this photo myself instead?

Ways to present your images

There's no single "correct" way to present image research — the best approach depends on your theme, your style, and what feels right for your project. Experiment with different formats and don't feel you need to do the same thing every time.

Annotated Pages

Images with handwritten or typed notes exploring what's interesting about them

Theme Collections

Groups of related images that explore different aspects of your theme together

Photo + Sketch Spreads

Your own photos placed alongside drawings made from them — shows real development

Contact Sheets

A grid of your own photographs — great for showing a shoot and selecting the strongest shots

Mixed Media Pages

Photos, drawings, colour swatches, and annotations combined on one page

Close-up Studies

Zooming in on one detail — a texture, a typeface, a shape — and really exploring it

Whatever format you choose, make sure your images are doing something — not just filling space. A page with three thoughtfully placed images and genuine annotation will almost always outperform a page crammed with twenty images that haven't been looked at properly.

Common mistakes to avoid

These come up again and again. None of them are disasters — but recognising them is the first step to doing something different.

Using the first results from Google without thinking

If you type your theme into Google Images and save the top three results, that's what everyone else is doing too. It shows. Spend an extra few minutes to find something more interesting, more specific, or more relevant.

Blurry or pixelated images

A low-resolution image tells the examiner you weren't paying attention. It's also just unpleasant to look at and hard to work from. Only use images that are sharp and clear.

Images that don't connect to the theme

Every image in your project should earn its place. If you can't explain why it's there, it probably shouldn't be. Vague connections don't count.

All images looking the same

A page of ten near-identical images from the same angle and distance isn't research — it's repetition. Variety in your sources means more ideas to work from.

Not taking any photos yourself

Relying entirely on found images is a missed opportunity. Your own photographs make your project genuinely yours and give you something no one else has.

Collecting images without using them

Filling a page with images you never draw from, annotate, or respond to is the most common problem of all. Images should lead somewhere — to a sketch, a design idea, a colour exploration. If they don't, they're not really doing anything.

If you're stuck — do this

Sometimes you just don't know where to start. That's completely normal. Here are a few things you can do right now, even if your project feels a long way away from being good.

01 Go and take 10 photos — right now

Use your phone. Don't overthink it. Photograph objects, textures, places, or people connected to your theme. Even if most of them aren't great, a few will be, and that's enough to get going.

02 Photograph the ordinary

You don't need a professional shoot. A piece of fabric, a window frame, a shadow on a wall — things you see every day can be surprisingly rich sources if they connect to your theme.

03 Search more specifically

Instead of just your theme keyword, try adding words like: close-up, texture, composition, detail, sketch, minimal, structure. You'll find more interesting material than the same generic stock photos.

04 Stop collecting — start drawing

If you're spending too long finding images, pick one you already have and draw from it. A quick 10-minute sketch from a photo is more valuable than another hour of searching.

05 Ask yourself one question

"Could I take this photo myself?" — If the answer is yes, or even maybe, it's almost always worth trying. Your own version will be more interesting than someone else's.

A word on copyright and originality

Using images responsibly

Images you find online belong to the people who made them. You can absolutely use them for research and reference — that's exactly what they're there for — but you shouldn't copy them directly and present them as your own design work.

The distinction is between using an image as a source and reproducing it as an outcome. Analysing a photograph, sketching from it, using it to develop a colour palette, or being inspired by its composition — all of that is completely fine, and it's what good research looks like.

But downloading an image, tracing it, and calling it a final piece is a different thing. Your examiners are looking for your ideas, your responses, your visual thinking. Found images are a starting point — not the destination.

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