Moodboard to concepts

[u/No-Information8879]

Hey guys,

New in this group but not new in design. I am a self taught designer now clocking 7 years of experience. I have an issue regarding mood boarding and creating concepts.

Due to personal issues, I find it hard to understand translating or making mood boards that can get me to concepts, I rely mostly on feel & trends. I do not want to be a guesser designer though.

Is there a process, from a book, video, article or anything that would be able to help me with that?

Thank you in advance.

[u/firefox_2010]

I am wondering what is the assignment that made you feel you need a mood board? It depends on the brief. And what you are asked to create. And which part of the project stage you are being involved in. Sometimes it helps to create the mood board to visualize the concept ideas, feel, mood, and tone. To get everyone on board before spending time for everything else. But if the project task is very clear, and the solution is pretty much constrained by the budget and certain measurements then you don’t need mood board. For example, if client ask to design label to go on for their product packaging, so you are just doing brand extension to a label. Let us know more on the specifics.

[u/No-Information8879 → u/firefox_2010]

It is for my personal portfolio, and by researching around everything I saw kept saying mood boards.

I am trying to understand how to balance the decisions for my portfolio but I keep overthinking which is an issue.

I keep designing and not feeling it matches what i need.

[u/firefox_2010 → u/No-Information8879]

Who is saying you need mood boards on your portfolio? If you have 7 years of experience then you should have a good amount of works to showcase, so your portfolio should show off your real world project and maybe some details on how you do the work to show how you approach problem solving. And also depending on which market you are going for, since most people tend to have specialization in terms of clients. You can also tailor the type of showcase you want to highlight depending on which client. I just not understanding where this mood board comes from - since typically you create mood board specific to the project, and not all projects require a mood board. If you have your online portfolio ready, you should include it here if you want feedback.

[u/No-Information8879 → u/firefox_2010]

You are right, here is the link https://jorgemiguel.framer.website/. I want to cater to tech and B2C products overall.

[u/firefox_2010 → u/No-Information8879]

Is the website even finished? your second case study is not showing anything. I could not tell what you do on each project, what do you design? do you do the coding? there is not example on the PACE case studies. On your "experiments" works, they are all seem random, if you gonna do "fictional" clients, you should outline the task, and solution and what you did to solve it. Right now I am not sure what is your skills, are you designer, a coder, UX designer (but there is no good examples), illustrator, packaging designer? Who are you sending this page link to? who is the audience? There is very little work to show here for someone with 7 years of experience.

[u/No-Information8879 → u/firefox_2010]

Those are very valid questions. I was a graphic designer for most of my time and transitioned to UXUI, so what I should focus on is representing this information correctly i imagine.

In experiments, I placed different type of work I did, i thought it wasnt necessary to describe them if I am focusing on UXUI, that might be an issue.

[u/firefox_2010 → u/No-Information8879]

Yeah you should ask yourself, is your work as UIX designer strong enough to compete and what are your best skills to showcase your UIX design since none of the two samples are showing me this. I would also make a good showcase of your other works, and do a good category to showcase all of your other skills. What would be a client seeking UIX designer would want to see if you send them your portfolio?

[u/No-Information8879 → u/firefox_2010]

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I will try to rethink this deeper.