How we do Moodboards (and why it saves everyone from “the wrong kind of love”)
How we do Moodboards (and why it saves everyone from “the wrong kind of love”)
A moodboard is not “a pretty collage”. It’s a synchronisation tool — a fast, visual contract between the product team and designers, before anyone falls in love with the wrong direction.
Who this is for
Product teams (especially async ones)
If your team works across time zones, calendars, and attention spans, the moodboard becomes a shared north star that doesn’t require a 2-hour meeting to understand. It’s show, don’t tell — not as a slogan, but as a working method.
Stakeholders who want speed and taste
Not taste as in “I like blue”. Taste as in: a decision-making framework that prevents endless revisions.
Designers who want to avoid the revision treadmill
Nothing hurts more than building something you love… and then learning the client hates the vibe (not the quality). Moodboards prevent that. Early.
Why we use visuals to synchronise
Words are slow. Words are abstract. Words are easy to misinterpret. Visuals are immediate. A moodboard communicates tone, hierarchy, density, energy, and emotional direction without turning the process into a philosophical debate.
The core purpose: avoid the wrong direction (even if we love it)
Designers are emotional creatures. We can fall in love with a direction because it’s elegant, bold, trendy, or simply impressive. But if stakeholders don’t share that emotional response, you don’t have a direction — you have a future conflict. A moodboard is a controlled taste alignment step that saves the team from spending 2–3 weeks polishing something that will be rejected in 2 minutes.
Our moodboard flow
1) Start with the niche (the “industry nerve”)
Before mixing aesthetics, we read the room:
- common patterns
- dominant colours
- spacing traditions
- typical typography choices
- what users already understand
Because the most usable interface is often the most familiar one. We’re not here to be edgy for sport. We’re here to be relevant and distinctive.
2) Collect references to build a system (not just a mood)
We pull inspiration from:
- product UI patterns
- brand identities
- editorial layouts
- photography styles
- illustration approaches
- motion cues (if relevant)
But we don’t just pile images. We curate references into decision buckets:
- tone (calm vs loud)
- shape language (soft vs sharp)
- density (airy vs compact)
- typography mood
- colour behaviour
- visual metaphors
3) Invite the product team to collaborate (not spectate)
Moodboards work best when product owners, PMs, and founders participate early. Because it flips design from a “service” into collaboration:
- they feel ownership
- they see options
- they help narrow direction
- they’re not surprised later
The goal is simple: Create something the product team would love to ship — not something they tolerate.
4) Run an async “reaction round”
This is the part most teams mess up by over-intellectualising. We ask for quick reactions:
- what feels right
- what feels wrong
- what feels risky
- what feels “too competitor-like”
- what feels “not us”
The key is to react to specific elements:
- type
- contrast
- imagery tone
- spacing
- UI references
Not “I like it / don’t like it” in a vacuum.
5) Lock the direction — and protect it
Once we align, the moodboard becomes a reference point we return to when:
- someone requests random changes
- new stakeholders join mid-project
- the team forgets why a decision was made
It’s not decoration. It’s governance.
Bonus: it keeps us connected to trends (without chasing them)
Moodboards also serve an internal purpose: keeping the design team in touch with what’s happening visually in the world. Not to copy trends. Not to cosplay as bleeding edge. But to:
- recognise what’s becoming normal
- understand what users are currently exposed to
- mix fresh patterns with proven principles (the only real way to stay relevant for years)
What a “good” moodboard outcome looks like
A good moodboard doesn’t look good. A good moodboard makes decisions easy. By the end, everyone should be able to say:
- “This feels like us.”
- “This feels like our market.”
- “This feels like a direction we can defend.”
- “This reduces surprise later.”
If it does that — it already saved the project.
