The Moodboard Effect

From beauty, to food, to fashion, it feels everything is starting to look the same – or be presented in the same way at least. This feeling was cleverly dissected in AIGA a couple of weeks ago with a framing the author calls the moodboard effect - wherein “the vast availability of reference imagery has, perhaps counterintuitively, led to narrower thinking and shallower visual ideation”.

So where do we go from here? How can creatives work to blow apart the moodboard effect and expand their frames of reference? I asked ACNE’s own Adam Springfledt for his take: “To provide a moodboard for direction and client sign off, and an ambition to create something new, is very hard. To create something original and innovative, one has to go beyond existing references.” I also asked Kav, who mused that to make those broader creative jumps, we must also look to references that create juxtapositions in our work.

Perhaps this is just the same problem, only addressed in a newer, digital context. Adam brought up an instance of ad legend Trevor Beattie comparing studying past awards annuals to “creative BSE”. Which is certainly a more succinct way of putting it.

By Yetunde & Kavanagh from ACNE London
+ Adam from ACNE Stockholm for ACNE Curious #21