Moodboard Builder

A moodboard is not a Pinterest dump - it is a curated argument for one specific visual direction, made before pixels are pushed. The costly failure mode is a board of 40 nice-looking images that lets every stakeholder see whatever they want in it, so "alignment" evaporates the moment real design work appears. This procedure produces a tight board and a written statement that survive the client meeting.

Operating procedure

Order matters: the emotional target is the filter every image must pass through, so writing it after sourcing guarantees a board justified backwards.

Step 1: Gather inputs

Collect before sourcing anything. Where the user does not know, use the default and label the guess as a guess.

• What the brand does and who the primary customer is (no default - ask).
• Project stage: new brand, rebrand, or refresh (changes how far the board may stray from existing equity; default: new brand).
• Where the direction will live first: web product, packaging, social, environments (default: web product).
• Existing constraints: locked colors, existing logo, category conventions that cannot be broken (default: none).
• Audience for the board itself: internal creative team or paying client (a client board needs more annotation; default: client).

Step 2: Write the emotional target