Design Smarter, Not Harder
Join 11,000+ engaged creatives to know how to get ahead, and stay ahead, in your field.
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Ever spent hours crafting a mood board… only for your client to say, “Can we make it feel more like Apple?” And you’re back to square one. (It’s enough to make even seasoned creatives dread the task.) Yep. Been there. The traditional process takes 5 to 8 hours (at least). And still, you’re sent back with vague feedback. What if AI could 10x your speed and your creative range? In this post, I’ll show you how to build stunning, client-ready mood boards in just 15 minutes using AI. No fluff. Just a smarter workflow. You’ll learn how to:
Let’s turn one of design’s most time-consuming tasks into one of its most energizing. Create a Mood Board Using AILet’s summarize the workflow. It includes the following steps:
Time to go deep into them one by one. Step 1: Analyze The BrandChoose the brand you want to approach. Also add a few other examples that you like. For this exercise, I chose AG1, a brand I use and like for its simplicity and effectiveness. The goal here is to create ideas for social media campaigns for it. Step 2: Conduct Your ResearchI studied the website, its products, basic color palette, ingredients, and site layout. (I particularly like its green palette.) Step 3: Generate Concepts Using ChatGPTAfter my initial analysis, I open ChatGPT and pasted the below prompt template: You are an expert brand strategist. Create a mood board for a [type of brand] that inspires the color palette, typography, and overall style. Include photography, graphic elements, and colors based on the following: [list brand values or themes] Here, I replaced [type of brand] with "Drink AG1". And I can list the brand values and themes, or I can simply replace it with AG1’s website link because ChatGPT can scan the web. Once the platform finished its web search and created a basic mood board, I asked for photography style ideas to use for online ads, social media, website, or newsletter. A Gift For YouOur AI x Creative Accelerator Cohort (Cohort #14) starts on 3rd June. As a subscriber to this email list, you get a $150 discount to join it by using this link. In this 3-week hands-on course, you get everything you need to:
... and much more. Check out the course (with the discount) here. Step 4: Ask for Specific Visual IdeasNow we start getting slightly advanced. I pasted ChatGPT’s suggestion on Photography Style ideas again in the tool. Next, I asked for 5 different ideas on the topic. Here’s the prompt: Suggest 5 different ideas for lifestyle imagery featuring active, health-conscious individuals engaging in daily routines, emphasizing vitality and well-being. Here are three of them: Pro Tip: At this point, I do not look for control or perfection; just generating a whole lot of ideas quickly. Step 5: Create Images With MidJourneyThe fun continues. I took each of the descriptions ChatGPT offered and pasted them in MidJourney. (I also cleaned them up by removing headings like Scene, Visual Mood, Props, and so on). Next, I set the aspect ratio (3:4 in this case for social media visuals) and started generating images. These can be inspiration for building a mood board. I repeated the process for the remaining 4 suggestions. Step 6: Generate Product Design ConceptsThe next step was to ask for packaging-design ideas. Here is the image prompt (that you can again use as a template): Suggest ideas for packaging design of AG1. Replace AG1 with a simple description of the design and the shape should look like, then write an overlay text “AG1” in the prompt. I got suggestions like: I repeated the process by pasting the prompts from ChatGPT in MidJourney and got a ton of images. Here are 2 of them, “a futuristic sculptured ceramic jar in matte white” and “a matte green rectangular box opened slightly with sachets inside.” (These were also ChatGPT’s suggestions.) Step 7: Compile Your Mood BoardFinally, I can put together all the ideas I like and share them either with my team or my manager. The aim is not to have a final-cut mood board within 15 minutes (although with practice, you could get to a level where it will be possible). It is to generate visual prototypes that help you and your team brainstorm ideas that leave your client in awe. [Also Read: We Used AI to Build Our Brand: This is What We Learned (Hits and Misses)] Bringing It All TogetherThere you have it. A mood board created in 15 minutes that could have taken up to 3 working days. This includes color schemes, design elements, and everything else. Plus, you can play around as much as you want, like a child with crayons. No one to tell you it can’t be done; the only limits are your imagination. Experiment and you will discover unique combinations, which, in turn, will make your visuals more compelling. Try this workflow and let me know how it turns out for you. And if you have suggestions to improve this, do write back to me. I would love to learn from you. Pro Tip #1: Maintain a digital dossier of campaigns and visuals that appeal to you. When you create mood boards, you can feed them to ChatGPT for inspiration. Pro Tip #2: Apart from MidJourney, you can also use Ideogram for generating AI visuals. Cinematic Consistent Character AnimationWe just tested a powerful combo: Here’s what makes it magic:
Works for wide shots, close-ups, even dramatic transitions Who should try this?
If you're in visual storytelling or branded content, this combo is worth exploring. Talk soon, Sachin and Diana Note: You’re receiving this email because you signed up for Neolemon’s AI x Creative Accelerator workshop and opted into our waitlist on Maven. If you'd rather not receive future updates, you can unsubscribe anytime using the link below — but just a heads-up: you might miss out on new tools, fresh prompts, and behind-the-scenes lessons we don’t share anywhere else. |
Design Smarter, Not Harder
Join 11,000+ engaged creatives to know how to get ahead, and stay ahead, in your field.