Help me make a moodboard!

October 5, 2009 7:26 AM

Help! A potential client asked me to make a moodboard for their new product (a range of healthy snacks). They asked a few other designers to do this as well and based on these boards they are going to decide which designer will do their logo etc. Problem is that even though I'm an experienced graphic designer I have never done a moodboard! Or even been given one to work with, come to think of it. So I'm in desperate need for some good advice / pointers / tips! What is the quickest way to get good at this? Any resources (video courses, tutorials, books) you can recommend are more than welcome.
posted by dinkyday to media & arts (6 answers total)

Are you being paid to make the moodboard?
posted by ecorrocio at 8:06 AM on October 5, 2009

ecorrocio: Looks like not, since the moodboard will be used to select the winning bid for the project.

dinkyday, did you search google for moodboard? I did a search and this video came up early in the links.
posted by jdfan at 8:11 AM on October 5, 2009

Find out as much as you can about the snacks and the marketing thinking that has gone into their development. Your client should have a target market etc in mind, buying occasions, product mix, planned availability / placement, planned marketing campaigns etc.

I've found that clients have a fixed idea of who their target audience is, and it's your job, if you want the gig, to reflect this as closely as you can in your mood board so that, cynically speaking, you are at this stage telling them what they want to hear about what their customers look like, do and buy.

They may not be able to articulate this very well, but the more you can find out about the target demographic, product placement and the campaign, the more you can rig the board.

Examples:

Which magazines etc might they plan on advertising in? Get lifestyle imagery from these magazines and other similar ones so that the mood board shows the activities etc of that market
What else does this market buy? include the competition or other purchases this demographic makes (magazines etc as above are good at providing this)
What shops will stock it? Look at the product category and see what comes up (without making it look like you'll just copy a competitor - look for associated products not direct competition)

etc.
posted by dowcrag at 8:29 AM on October 5, 2009

OP here: no, I won't be paid for this. Unpaid rush job doing something I've never done before. Perfect. I actually completely agree with ecorrocio but business has been extremely slow lately so I kind of feel I am not in a position to turn this down. But believe me: I would LOVE to be able to turn this down.
posted by dinkyday at 8:32 AM on October 5, 2009

Here's an article with a mood board template you can download. This other article is very interesting and has many links for inspiration. Both are mainly focused on mood boards for web design, but I'm sure you will be able to adapt them for an identity project.
posted by clearlydemon at 8:36 AM on October 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

[please take spec work sidebar to metatalk please, thank you]
posted by jessamyn at 12:09 PM on October 5, 2009