Writer to writer - The 5 things you need to know about aesthetics
An aesthetic is a combination of images and words, combined together in such a way that gives the viewer the feeling and idea behind your content.
(aesthetic created by @mcfrankauthor for Salt for Air, turned into a gif)
For example, an aesthetic of my new novel, Salt for Air, is not a collage of my characters' look-alikes or a collection of quotes from the book. It could include a close up of a scraped knee, a mermaid's tale, a quote from Homer. Those things let you know, just by looking at the aesthetic, without words, that you are dealing with something about mermaids, exciting ancient Greek literature, and possibly some drama. There are a ton of variations of what an aesthetic could be or include, and in order to discover that you can simply look it up on tumblr or google the word "aesthetic."
The word, by the way, is purely Greek.
It comes from the word αισθητική (aestheteke) which can't be translated in English, as it doesn't exist in that language.
Broadly speaking, it encapsules the meaning of the words: beauty, feeling, mood and essence in one word. It's also a word that always implies the presence of beauty, so remember, your aesthetic has to be beautiful. It can be dark, frightening, melancholy, pastel or bursting with colors, but it has to be aesthetically pleasing.
WHY
Why might you need an aesthetic?
To promote your book before/while/after writing or publishing it (if you are a writer)
To make a book review prettier and more noticeable (if you are a reader)
To post on instagram, whether you belong to a fandom, want to spread your love for a particular book or movie, or spread the word about your own novel
To have fun. (This is the most important one.) To celebrate things you like, like autumn, a mood, Sherlock, Kpop, The Raven Boys, Greek mythology... anything you're a fan of, really. Creating aesthetics is one of the most creative, easy and fun things I've ever done. I have put them in the cover of my notebooks, I have decorated my walls with them, I have one currently as my home screen on my phone. Ellie in Salt for Air, my fantasy novel, has an entire fandom wall dedicated to aesthetics. (I'm still not there, but SO jealous.)
To educate people. If you write a blog post and decorate it with an aesthetic to give the feel of what you're talking about, people will connect with the subject you're tackling much more easily. A visual aid always helps.
To help promote someone else's work. I have asked my street team to create aesthetics for my books in the past, and it has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life so far. (forreal)
(OC character board/aesthetic for Astra, the protagonist of my No Ordinary Star series.)
HOW
How to create an aesthetic?
Open photoshop, canva, or simply a photo-collage app on your phone
Find copyright free images on the web that fit the theme you want to portray and download them
Choose the kind of grid you'd like your aesthetic to have. Consider what you want? A big photo with two little ones attached? Pretty cool! The usual square one with nine little square photos inside, all lined up nicely, that's perfect for instagram and social media? Yay! A rectangular one that loads as you scroll down on tumblr? This one will fit sooo many photos and you are free to go crazy (as you always are, of course) so I'm all in for that!
Crop the photos you have picked so that you don't include them as they were. You want an eye here, a lip there, a boot, the edge of a closing door, a piece of a blue sky, a petal of a daisy. Things shouldn't be obvious in an aesthetic, it should give the feeling of something unfinished. Imagined.
Add filters so that they all have a uniform color and contrast
Place them so that the final result is satisfying you
You can leave a few places blank or fill them with a solid color, and add text to them. This is harder, and for more experienced creators, so don't try it at once. This wanders over to the filed of graphic design, and if you don't know what you're doing with fonts, you can create a disaster that's completely unusable by anyone (and it will do more harm to your project than good, believe me.)
In general, look at a ton of aesthetics before you start to find your style, and then have fun with it. Spoiler alert: it's so much fun, you won't be able to stop. (Should have included a disclaimer, but I'm an evil person, so there.)
(’The Beauty’: character aesthetic for my reverse Beauty and the Beast retelling, created by me - read it here)
WHAT
What can you include in an aesthetic?
As I mentioned before, don't include complete photographs, make sure to crop them just so, and to combine them prettily.
If you're interested in cultivating this talent/hobby, be sure to follow gorgeous aesthetic blogs here on tumblr, to learn from them.
You should be careful not to include copyrighted material. Now, this line is blurry, since you will probably not be using them commercialy (that means to earn money). So you are free to use a part of any image you like, as long as you crop it. Whenever possible, include the source where you took the photos from.
Do NOT include faces. At least not entire faces, and for sure try not to include faces of famous people, such as models or actors. For one, they will be recognized by your audience and distract attention from your original characters, and for another, you risk running into copyright issues. However, you can use Sherlock's hair, Mr Darcy's collar, or Wonder Woman's eyes. People will still recognize them cropped, but they will get that you're trying to portray a feeling and not a person. Mission accomplished.
Do NOT include explicit stuff. For Lose Me, my street team created so many lovely aesthetics, but I could use less than half of them, because Lose Me takes place in summer, and everyone kept putting in photos of girls in bikinis, kissing boys passionately on the sand. Well, guess what? The internet sees that as nudity, so be careful. (I was also reluctant to put naked girls and boys on my feed, as you can imagine, no matter how romantic their poses). So again, your best friend is the crop tool. Crop an elbow, a collarbone, two lips meeting. That should be fine.
Do include quotes, but as I said, if you're not a designer, please do not try it, as it will end up ruining the aesthetic. Best to leave it just with the pictures and add any words you like in the caption.
Do include closeups of things and faces and bodies. It's all in the details.
Do include nature, trees, sky, rainbows. Houses, crystals, books. A well-balanced aesthetic should be half scenery half people with a few inanimate objects scattered throughout, if possible.
Do include sources and disclaimers, as mentioned above.
Be creative. If you want an aesthetic for a scifi fairytale, for instance, include pixels, lights, stars, large buildings, spaceships, blue hair, the hem of a shiny dress and so on... See? You've already gotten a space vibe, and you haven't even seen an aesthetic yet. Cool, right? Yes, cool.
Do NOT include ANY spoilers (of course)
THINK: What do you want people to think about when they see this aesthetic? Do you want them to think of summer? What images would put you in the mood you want to put others in? Think of abstract ideas, think of hobbies and of feelings. And look for images with those words in unsplash.com. You'll find a ton of cool pictures to use, all copyright free.
(Aesthetic for my Robin Hood WIP, created by me @mcfrankauthor)
WHERE
Where can you use your aesthetic?
You can't use your aesthetic anywhere that people pay for your content. That includes your published book, YouTube, and so on.
But you can use them on your blog (and you totally should)
Instagram and other social media. There are tons of aesthetics accounts popping up on insta every week, and I try to follow every one. And there's the #ThursdayAesthetic hashtag on twitter, for which I post religiously (mostly).
Use them anywhere you want to post your review, your fangirling/fanboying, anywhere you want to talk about a book.
Print them and glue them to your wall. That's what I do, I'm not kidding.
Use them as your inspiration board (see above). Nothing helps put me in the mood for whatever story I'm writing like music and images. Images more so, because they are silent, but they talk so much! And they help me create beauty, instead of just enjoying it (which is what happens when I listen to a gorgeous song). Believe me, your whole creation process might take flight.
Whenever you want to give more substance to an imaginary world. That's what an aesthetic is for. To give a feeling of a thing, instead of the thing itself.
I personally love them and use them a lot, and I am so happy to help a few other creative people get stuck in this bottomless pit of creating.
(Instpiration moodboard for the rich boys and talented girls of the Lose Me series created by me, for personal use.)
Tag me in any aesthetics you have or will create, I am so crazy about them, I'll probably reblog them all!
