Assembles a curated moodboard of 8 to 16 images plus a 150-300 word art direction statement that argues for one visual direction. Use when someone asks "build a moodboard", "set the visual direction for this brand", "get the team aligned on look and feel before design starts", or is presenting art direction to a client. Do NOT use for sourcing and licensing individual production images - use visual-asset-curation or stock-photo-finder instead; for codifying an already-approved identity into usage rules, use brand-guidelines.
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name: Moodboard Builder
description: Assembles a curated moodboard of 8 to 16 images plus a 150-300 word art direction statement that argues for one visual direction. Use when someone asks "build a moodboard", "set the visual direction for this brand", "get the team aligned on look and feel before design starts", or is presenting art direction to a client. Do NOT use for sourcing and licensing individual production images - use visual-asset-curation or stock-photo-finder instead; for codifying an already-approved identity into usage rules, use brand-guidelines.
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# Moodboard Builder
A moodboard is not a Pinterest dump - it is a curated argument for one specific visual direction, made before pixels are pushed. The costly failure mode is a board of 40 nice-looking images that lets every stakeholder see whatever they want in it, so "alignment" evaporates the moment real design work appears. This procedure produces a tight board and a written statement that survive the client meeting.
## Operating procedure
Order matters: the emotional target is the filter every image must pass through, so writing it after sourcing guarantees a board justified backwards.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect before sourcing anything. Where the user does not know, use the default and label the guess as a guess.
- What the brand does and who the primary customer is (no default - ask).
- Project stage: new brand, rebrand, or refresh (changes how far the board may stray from existing equity; default: new brand).
- Where the direction will live first: web product, packaging, social, environments (default: web product).
- Existing constraints: locked colors, existing logo, category conventions that cannot be broken (default: none).
- Audience for the board itself: internal creative team or paying client (a client board needs more annotation; default: client).
### Step 2: Write the emotional target
… install to load the full skill