Aesthetics and the Moodboard
How to see it, how to say it, and how to show it to a client.

Today.

AESTHETICS AND THE MOODBOARD · MON 10.05 · EXPLORATIONS CHECKPOINT WED 10.07

Your brief is written. Now it has to look like something.On Sept 28 you wrote two or three paths. A moodboard is how each path gets seen before anything is made.

In the market: beauty becomes a reason to buyBy the 1920s, advertisers and manufacturers were selling beauty on purpose: how a thing looks, and how it makes people feel.

Every one of those answers is still in the roomClients use all six without knowing where they came from. Hear which one they mean, and you know what to ask.

A brand is a gut feelingNeumeier, 2003. Like Hume, he puts the judgment in the person looking. Before anyone reads a word, they have felt something about the colors, type, and pictures.

"A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service, or organization."

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap, 2003, p. 14

"It's a PERSON'S gut feeling, because brands are defined by individuals, not companies, markets, or publics."

p. 15

"It's not what you say it is. It's what they say it is." pp. 17 to 18

A look is not a brand, and taste is not an argumentBoth readings make the same point from opposite sides.

Neumeier: look and feel, or characterHis pictures make the point faster than his words. Same person in three shirts. Same network in three logos.

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap, 2003, from Discipline 5, Cultivate. Today's reading names the character: an archetype.

The Apple logo, read three waysMark and Pearson read Eden into the bite. The designer says it was there for scale. Once a mark is out in the world, both readings belong to it.

"Often, the best corporate logos echo ancient symbols. Apple's logo, for instance, evokes the first act of rebellion in the Garden of Eden, a powerful distillation of the brand's iconoclastic identity."

Mark and Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw, ch. 2

Janoff has said the bite was there for scale, so the shape would read as an apple and not a cherry.

As reported by Logo Histories · Wikipedia

Neumeier, p. 18: "It's what they say it is."

One archetype, or a confused brandMark and Pearson's evidence that a brand should play one character, the same way, over time.

"Archetypes defy the 'pick some characteristics from column A and some from column B' practice of creating brand identity; rather, these ancient psychic imprints are whole and complete concepts..."

Mark and Pearson, ch. 2, PDF p. 38

Their Young & Rubicam study: brands strongly tied to one archetype gained far more market value over six years than "confused brands." One apparel brand read as a Hero to every age group in 1997. Two years later, teenagers had stopped seeing it that way.

"The best archetypal brands are—first and foremost—archetypal products..."

PDF p. 34

Each archetype has a lookThe book describes each one in parts you can name: color, image, layout, material.

Mark and Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw, chs. 4 to 15. Page numbers are the course PDF's.

To talk about a look, name its partsEvery aesthetic is made of choices you can point to. Six places to look, and how a specific description sounds.

An adjective covers a region. A specific thing names a point.An example from the DESIGN.md reading, Google Labs.

Every client request is a translation jobDavis's chapter 3 is about this. A client asks for a thing. What they need is what the thing is supposed to do.

Douglas Davis, Creative Strategy and the Business of Design, ch. 3, "What They Say versus What We Hear," and ch. 2

What they say, and what to ask nextThe reaction is real. The words are a guess at it. Find the part they are pointing at.

Turn "like" and "hate" into "works" and "doesn't work"Wednesday's reading, Davis ch. 12. Then ask which part they are reacting to.

"If your client says the words 'like' or 'hate,' replace them with 'this works' or 'this doesn't work' in your reply."

Davis, ch. 12, "Interpret the Feedback"

"If your client 'doesn't like' the layout or concept, you can then ask if it's the typeface, colors, format, imagery, headlines, or connotation that they're reacting to."

Same page

"I've seen so many great ideas die on the table because they weren't presented correctly and, therefore, had no buffer against the subjective black hole."

Sidebar, "We'll Look Into It (Wink)"

Ask about the brief, not about tasteDavis: move each decision "away from an individual's preference and toward connecting the brand with the target."

Every field that makes things for other people uses some kind of boardThe name and the format change. The job stays the same: agree on a look before paying to make it.

Three boards should be three answers, not three colorsDavis's two diagrams from chapter 9. On the left the client can only answer with taste. On the right each option is a different bet for the business.

"There is no strategy behind the options; they're just creative choices."

Davis, ch. 9, "Beyond 'Make It Pretty'"

"At best, these options are not just variations of the same thing, they are Rhinoceros, Rainbow, and Rhombus—in other words, completely different ways to solve the same problem..."

Davis, ch. 1, "Scenario Analysis"

Name each option for its idea.

What a moodboard does well, and what it does badly

Sameness is not new. In 2003 it was the swoosh.Neumeier's page of logos from the dot-com years: everyone reached for the same mark at the same time.

Ask: what is today's swoosh? What is on every board in your category?

We only notice what is differentNeumeier's picture of it, and Mark and Pearson's version: whole categories playing the same character the same shallow way.

"...virtually every brand is not only on the same archetype, but they are all operating at the same level of the archetype—the most shallow and obvious one."

Mark and Pearson, ch. 16, PDF p. 253, on ads aimed at teenagers

Picking a different archetype from your competitors is one way to zig. Playing the same one at a deeper level is another.

"Boston," 2026: a No. 2 song with someone else's chorus in itListen to both choruses. Then decide: is that copying?

"I wasn't thinking about Noah Kahan"What happened, and what is only alleged.

Sources: Consequence · American Songwriter, Sept 16, 2026 · Rolling Stone · BroBible

A style belongs to no one. A specific expression belongs to someone.Courts keep drawing the line in different places. In design, the line is usually drawn by the public first.

Name your references out loudDavis on setting up a presentation, in Wednesday's chapter: say where the work came from before you show it.

How to build a board that stays yoursThe rules Workhorse works by.

The swap test and the hand testAs Neumeier draws them: two checks that take a minute. Use them on any identity, including a moodboard.

How Workhorse builds a moodboardThe Resume Place identity, 2022. Words first, then themes, then one board per theme, then the client's answers.

Four boards, four readings of the same wordsResume Place moodboards, Workhorse, 2022. Every image on them is someone else's work, collected as reference.

A board is many things that agree with each otherLook at what repeats: the same few colors, the same kind of type, the same kind of picture. The repetition is the look.

On the middle board: one orange used big, cream paper, black type, serif headlines, objects shown flat and straight on.

Ask of any board: what three things does every picture on it share? If you can't answer, it is a pile of pictures.

The last page asks questions, not "approve?"The same deck's next steps. The client answers these before any design starts.

Does the language fit your mission? Which word matters most, and least? Which theme? Which pictures look like your vision?

Someone who has never designed anything can answer every one.

Grubb's Pharmacy: brand language, then four themesWorkhorse for Grubb's Pharmacy, a neighborhood pharmacy on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. November 2020.

Each theme gets one sentence and two picturesThe sentence is in the client's voice. The pictures only have to show the feeling of it.

Then a board for each themeFour boards, four different pharmacies. The client chooses a direction.

Neurogazer: the same order for a digital productWorkhorse for Neurogazer, a new neuroscience company, for parents and the neuroscience community. April 2021.

Boards named for what they look likeA client can repeat every one of these names in a meeting.

Add screens from the apps and sites your audience already usesYour brand will live on a phone. Collect how other products look and behave there, and say what you take from each.

Before Wednesday.

EXPLORATIONS CHECKPOINT OCT 7 · PRESENTED OCT 14 · NO CLASS OCT 12, FALL BREAK