Recently, I was asked to help our visual designer to brainstorm ideas on what some of our icons should represent. The challenge with these icons were they represented fairly abstract concepts, like services and aggregate. Not only were the concepts abstract, but the size of these icons had to be 16×16. In order to get a good inventory of possible solution, creating a mind map for each of these concepts was the best solution.

After getting some basic ideas down, I quickly reached a mental dead end and needed some inspiration. Flickr is one of my first favorite online destinations when I need some visual help. It is my belief that people tag their pictures in the strangest way, and sometimes those tags have nothing to do with the picture. Based on this assumption, I used Flickr’s tagging system and users imaginations to help me fill out my mind maps.

One criticism of this method was that the contents of pictures are too limiting. In order to not fall into this trap, it is best to concentrate on the thoughts and images the pictures invoke in your own mind and decide if that fits into your concept. The results of this exploration can lead down a rabbit hole that opens up possibilities that may not have ever been considered. I hope to explore this exercise more and even tie the pictures I find to the nodes that inspired them. The resulting collage of images could present a visualization that totally redefines a concept, or it could just be a mix mash of peoples dogs. Only time will tell.

What do you think of this process? Have you tried to use something similar in? How successful was it for it?