Becoming a Pinterest Mom for a Shoot / by Charlene Wang de Chen

For an ad campaign, I ended up morphing into a Pinterest mom for a couple of days trying to channel my best crafting game which usually lie very dormant. 

These are some balloons made into ice cream cones that I had to fabricate. It is harder than it seems.

These are some balloons made into ice cream cones that I had to fabricate. It is harder than it seems.

To be honest the whole "pinterest perfect" twee aesthetic that has colonized all of our digitally visual lives is something I'm not a big fan of.  But on this shoot I also realized it was more than just our visual landscape that it has changed, it has also altered the commercial landscape. 

When did paperclips get so designed and cute-sy? When unpacking all the props for the shoot I started to wonder how come the most mundane office supplies are so cute now? Why are there things like perfect circle cutters and so many totally niche and very precise crafting tools?  Apparently the answer is Pinterest

Such as hand-crafting these gold stars to make a handmade ever so spontaneously twee background for the shoot.  Yes, something I got paid to do. 

Such as hand-crafting these gold stars to make a handmade ever so spontaneously twee background for the shoot.  Yes, something I got paid to do. 

It is pretty good article and I would argue that the same thing is happening with people's aesthetic, design, and decoration preferences because of Pinterest.

 Like how you can totally tell if a bride has been trolling pinterest for too long because all weddings start to conform to the same "pinterest perfect aesthetic" and that is really boring and sort of annoying to me. 

it isn't that exciting.  I'm usually pinning in spurts when I'm doing research for a project. 

it isn't that exciting.  I'm usually pinning in spurts when I'm doing research for a project. 

Oh yeah, I'm on Pinterest too if you want to follow along (I mostly use it for visual research for work or when I want to file an image away for future reference).