Why I love tumblr ‹ Dereck Johnson

I’ve been using tumblr on and off since September 2008, but never really committed to the platform. Very sporadically I’d post things to my account, but then just forget about it. Over the last couple of months I’ve stared using my account in ernest. Why the sudden change? Because I’ve suddenly realised that, to me at least, it’s the perfect scrapbook.

It’s become a way of me collecting together all the images that influence me, stuff that other people have created or captured that I find interesting. By using tumblr it allows me to keep all these images together, without filling up my hard drive and accessible from anywhere I have a net connection. It also serves as a visual diary, of where I was mind-wise. What initially appears to be a bunch of unrelated items serves to build a profile of my tastes. Whether this is a positive thing we have to wait and see.

Why keep a scrapbook?

Understanding that the things & stuff we surround ourselves with and the activities we indulge in, all have a tremendous effect on our views and opinions. They greatly affect the way we think. By keeping a scrapbook it allows us another way of solving problems, you’re never quite sure what will be triggered when you look back at what you’ve collected. Building a scrapbook is a task that I would encourage everyone to do. You don’t need to use tumblr, a good old sketch book and some glue will do the job. However you decide to keep you influences, as long as you keep adding to them, you’ll be creating something unique to you. Your own little visual library.

Why not just use Google Images?

You could, the same as you could just as easily use Flickr, but tumblr is so easy to use and if you use a search engine you’re limited to what you’ve searched for. It’s also not personal to you. tumblr also allows you to credit the place you found the image, which helps with copyright and allows you to take a different path to who knows where? tumblr is one of those things that just works. It’s simple to start using and if you feel like diving into it a bit deeper, you can. It’s taken me a while to really start using it, but now I’ve found a proper use for it, I can’t stop adding to it.