If you work in a creative industry, whether it’s advertising, filmmaking or fashion design, you eventually learn the value of a mood board. This collection of images (and sometimes swatches like Pantone color chips) helps convey the look and feel of a creative concept at its earliest stages. Now these physical boards are becoming digital, and new tools are helping teams to be more collaborative and productive in conveying their visions.

One of these tools turns out to be Pinterest.

This past fall, I used Pinterest to pitch two theme ideas to CMD’s holiday party committee. I researched images, recipes and DIY décor and crafts, pinned them and sent the committee links to each theme board. But it was when the committee chose one of these themes that the real fun began.

Art Director Elissa Kevrekian and I were given the task of creating the party invitations and related materials, and together we started a new Pinterest board that we could use to collaborate. Our board, Planks, Blades and Flakes, became our way of virtually bouncing ideas off each other and exploring different ways we could represent theme ideas visually.

A collaborative pinning experience makes establishing a mood board more democratic. Usually only one member of a creative team is responsible for shaping a board. Yet with Pinterest, anyone who has an account, fairly good searching skills and access to a shared board can participate in shaping an idea.

As Elissa and I worked on our board, patterns emerged. Discovering patterns during the brainstorming process wasn’t new, but seeing them emerge visually was. The pins we individually added revealed that we were both drawn to similar visual concepts. Elissa then transformed these concepts into sample invitations, representing the ideas we wanted the committee to consider.

While mood boards, whether physical or digital, generally only hint at the final direction a project will take for various reasons (e.g., we didn’t really have the budget to recreate the living room of Aerin Lauder’s ski chalet), a Pinterest mood board can help actualize details. I discovered this once the committee had chosen a conceptual direction and Planks, Blades and Flakes took on a new purpose. Elissa and I began gathering more pins related to culinary and décor possibilities, which we shared with CMD’s Director of Events Laura Day. Pinning details could also work well beyond event planning. For instance, video production teams could use pinboards to collaborate on locations, talent, wardrobe and props.

One of Pinterest’s newest features, which wasn’t available when Planks, Blades and Flakes was created, is the ability to have secret boards. Obviously this is ideal for brainstorming ideas you don’t want competitors to discover, or when you just want to keep your ideas a surprise. I think this capability should increase Pinterest’s relevance for collaborative pinning.

I look forward to trying it out with my teammates the next chance we get.

*Photo credit: Elissa Kevrekian