Seventeenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

This paper analyzes and discusses how designers work with images to project and produce ideas. The design process focuses on the moment where the concept arises. It remains halfway between the initial research and analysis phases and the ideation and development phases. When facing a design challenge, the author’s memory is filled with references; the challenge is how to incept a creative mechanism to work with them. The ideal tool for this task is the moodboard. Consequently, the paper considers, explains and even advocates that this means a creative mechanism of great importance in the design process, which allows the creator to think through images. The text delves into the internal mechanisms of the moodboard and explains it from two perspectives. Firstly, it delves into the generation of the moodboard: the assemblage. And secondly, it explains it through the notion that best allows us to understand the effects produced by the moodboard: the interface. Understanding the moodboard as an interface will enable us to realize that it is essentially a device, a sort of intermodal station, where formal thinking - through images - and conceptual thinking - through ideas - connect and mutually nourish each other.