ART 418 12: Aesthetics and the Moodboard

Monday, October 5, 2026 · Seminar

What aesthetics means, where Western thought has located beauty from Plato to the brand, how an archetype shows up in a look, how to name the parts of a look, and how to talk about it with clients who are not designers. Then moodboards: how other fields use them, how Workhorse builds them from descriptors and themes, where looking turns into copying, and how to build a board that stays yours. Work time on your boards, with app and site screens added.

Read before this class

- Mark and Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes. chapter 2, "Archetypes: The Heartbeat of Enduring Brands": the Apple logo, the Beetle, Coke, and the Young & Rubicam study of one archetype against confused brands, about 12 pp. of text.

Assigned today

- Reading for Standing Apart, read by Wednesday, October 7, 2026.

Materials

- [The slides](/lecture/art418-s12.html). Aesthetics, talking to clients, Workhorse moodboards from real projects, the copying cases, and the rules for a better board. - [The slides as a PDF](/lecture/art418-s12.pdf). The same deck, one slide per page. - [Blame the Moodboard](https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/all-advertising-looks-the-same-these-days-blame-the-moodboard/). AIGA Eye on Design, 2022. Why boards built from the same feeds make every brand look the same. - [Style Tiles and How They Work](https://alistapart.com/article/style-tiles-and-how-they-work/). Samantha Warren, A List Apart, 2012. The step between a moodboard and a mockup. - [Mobbin](https://mobbin.com). A library of app and site screens. The free tier is small; your own phone is the first place to look.

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Class 12 of 28, ART 418, The Business of Design, Charleston Southern University, Fall 2026.