A Moodboard Is Not a Wishlist

I ask a brand for a moodboard. Forty images arrive.

Inside those forty there's studio light and there's sunset. There's a minimal white background and there's a neon-lit street at night. There's a hand holding the product and there's a three-metre architectural frame. They're all good images. Together they say nothing.

That isn't a moodboard. That's a wishlist.

What a moodboard is for

A moodboard has exactly one job: to confirm, before the shoot starts, that both sides are imagining the same thing.

Words can't do it. The sentence "warm but modern" is one thing in my head and another thing in yours. Both sides believe they've agreed, the shoot ends, the frames come in, and someone says "this isn't what I pictured." At that point nobody is in the right. There's just a day that went to waste.

A moodboard kills that risk before the shoot. Which is why two hours spent on it is cheaper than four hours lost on set.

What belongs in a good moodboard

Six to ten images. No more.

The problem with forty images isn't quantity, it's contradiction. Past ten, some of them start fighting each other, and I end up having to settle that fight on set. On your behalf. That's not a good idea.

One sentence next to each image.

This is the critical item. If you don't write down why you put an image there, I'll guess. Five different things can be liked in the same photograph: the direction of light, the colour palette, the model's posture, the location, the looseness of the frame. If I don't know which, I'll take the wrong one.

"I put this frame in for its light, I don't want the model's pose." That one sentence doubles the value of a moodboard.

Separated references.

Light reference separate, colour palette separate, composition separate, styling separate. Don't expect all of it from a single image. It's perfectly normal to love a photograph's light and dislike its palette — and you need to say so.

What you don't want.

This section is almost never done and it's the most valuable. Put in two or three images and write "this is not our brand." A negative reference guides faster than a positive one. If I know where not to go, I work comfortably across everything that's left.

Three common mistakes

Mistake one: putting in a competitor's photo.

An understandable reflex, but the result is second-rate. When you reference your competitor's frame, the best case is that you produce a copy of it. A copy is always weaker than the original. Nobody wants to be "the brand that resembles them" — yet moodboards order exactly that.

Mistake two: a reference with no budget behind it.

References from thirty-person campaign shoots arriving for a job to be shot in one day, one location, with a five-person crew. What isn't visible in that frame: four gaffers, a jimmy jib, a closed-off street, three shooting days. Liking a reference is free, but choosing references without discussing what costs what steals everyone's time.

I say this at the proposal stage. It's something I say at the risk of not getting the job. I'd rather tell the truth up front than deliver disappointment later.

Mistake three: sending AI images as references.

This has increased a lot in the last year. The problem isn't that the image is AI-generated; the problem is that the image is physically impossible. Light comes from three directions at once, the shadows don't agree with each other, the geometry of the space doesn't hold. I can't build that frame in the real world. Nobody can.

You can use an AI image as an emotional reference — atmosphere, colour, mood. But if you say "I want exactly this," you've ordered an impossible job from the start.

Who should make the moodboard

The ideal is this: the brand sends a draft, we edit it, both of us approve it.

The part the brand must do is intent: what are we selling, to whom, with what feeling. The part we must do is translation: what that intent means in light, colour, framing and pose.

No brand is expected to produce a complete moodboard on its own. That's why you're calling us in the first place. But a brand is expected to know what it's selling. That part can't be delegated.

Approval is a signature

Once we agree on the moodboard, that document becomes part of the contract. On set, the sentence "actually we had something else in mind" is a new request if it isn't in the moodboard — and nobody should take offence when it's called one.

This isn't rigidity, it's protection. It protects you and it protects me. The moment a shared language exists, the argument stops being a matter of taste and becomes a matter of work.

The ordinary collects the frames they liked. The rebellious writes down what they don't want.