As you explore Calvino's Invisible Cities for your first project, it's time to start gathering visual reference and inspiration to enrich and fine-tune your imaginings. At the briefing, I'll talk about Influence Maps - digitally produced 'mood boards' that we use as a means of collating and curating image research. A single project idea might generate multiple influence maps - and should do - as early impressions give way to more definitive directions. You'll find the Influence Map template on myUCA in your Invisible Cities folder. Below is an example of an influence map at work. Here, the size of the image in the grid relates to the hierarchy of importance; in simple terms, the bigger the image, the bigger the influence. A properly useful influence map isn't decorative or image-rich for the sake of it, but rather an exercise in distillation, reflection and clarification. They are also a very economic way of ensuring that...