Pinterest is the perfect place to collect and share inspiration, but ironically it doesn’t have widespread adoption among designers. And by widespread adoption I mean, you don't yet own the heart and soul of every designer in the world who should be using Pinterest. You do own a small group of deeply obsessed creatives, and a broader group of moderately interested ones, but there are way too many designers and art directors who still haven't embraced the platform. You can find them wandering the wasteland of stock photography sites, or doing slow meandering searches through the internet to find the next big style. They drag and drop images from browser to desktop, where they get shuffled into project folders or locked into PowerPoint decks, briefly presented, then filed away to the distant corners on agency servers.
Informal polls with peers and collaborators hint at the same story. Many designers are familiar it Pinterest, but don’t use it daily. Some have to dust-off their log-in when I invite them to collaborate. They don't understand the vast body of content that’s already on the platform; how easy it is to discover, collect and curate meaningful inspiration. Maybe they were turned off by one too many sticky-bun recipes or Keep Calm posters, too many smoky eyes tips and upswept hairstyles. For whatever reason they failed to engage. They didn’t dig beneath the mainstream feed of Pinterest to find all the interesting niches. They didn't realize you can define and curate what you want to discover; shape your own experience. For these designers Pinterest remains a secondary source of imagery, not a central part of their process.
If Pinterest was the place where designers could not just gather their inspiration but begin to build concepts and tell stories, it would drive greater usage within creative fields. That means more designers, art directors, interior designers, architects and animators using the platform as a way to envision and present. Here are three ways that Pinterest could layer creative tools on top of the existing experience to provide that functionality: Moodboards, Storyboards and Mindmaps.
LAYERING NEW FUNCTIONALITY
Each of these concepts use existing boards as the starting point, creating an additional composition/presentation layer that floats on top, which the user can access and view through a new "Creative Tools" menu. This approach wouldn’t disrupt the core interactions on Pinterest, but provide design professionals new ways to integrate pins into their creative process. Pins on these boards would use the same basic assets as existing pins, but add additional properties for the pins that are used in the tools; like location on the composition space, secondary descriptions and/or titles, and sequencing of pins.
MOODBOARDS
A collage of complementary images that work together to communicate an idea or aesthetic. Moodboards are extremely valuable early in the design process to communicate a feeling or visual tone before getting locked into a specific direction. They communicate the totality of an experience versus zooming in on details, and can inspire clients without requiring the creative team to make deep design commitment.
Who would use it: Ad Agencies, Design Firms, Strategy Firms, Interior Designers, Architects, Product Designers, Branding Agencies
How it could work (Desktop Version):
- Take any board - Build a board the old-fashioned way, pinning and repinning from other boards and from the web.
- Choose your tool - Click "Creative Tools" menu and select Moodboard.
- Select images - Batch "Select Images" to check all the images from your board that you want to move into the composition layer.
- Open the composition - The moodboard composition layer opens up with the selected images on it clustered in a tray beneath. Only the images from the pins are shown on the composition layer, although a click on each image will bring up the standard pin preview with all the info. The composition layer could have an active area set to a standard proportion (16x9 or 11x17, for instance).
- Drag and drop The image/pins can be dragged and dropped onto the composition space in an organic fashion, automatic padding keeps consistent spacing between objects, preventing overlaps. Start at a corner and work your way out or anchor an image in the middle and build around it.
- Re-size images - Allowing the resizing of images by set parameters would allow users to create visual hierarch. Two options could be considered for resizing: 1) clicking on the handles of a selected object to resize or 2) selecting from a limited set of resizing options based on the default width (1xPin Width, 2x, 3x). The resized images ‘push out’ the other images, requiring a little adjustment to the composition after re-sizing.
- Remove images - Remove images from the composition layer with a single click. This will take them from the composition, but not from the board that the composition is based on. If the user wants to add more images they can close out of the composition to select more. Unused images will remain on the edges and be hidden from the final presentation.
- Compose images - Shuffle the images around to find the perfect composition and click save. The moodboard is ready to present.
- Title the moodboard - Enter a title for the moodboard for presentation purposes. This could be different from the title of the board itself.
- Presentation mode - Click presentation mode to enter a full screen presentation of the moodboard. Pan in both axis around the composition or just present on a really, really big monitor. Presentation mode could go full screen or remain fullwidth within the browser tab. Although the presentation format would feature minimal UI, Clicking on an image would yield the standard preview with related boards and pins, and closing out of the moodboard would return the viewer to the board that it’s built from.
>>> What Presentation Mode might look like on the iPad
STORYBOARDS
A story told through an artfully arranged sequence of images. Storyboards are used throughout the creative industry to communicate linear narratives to collaborators and clients. They are loosely related to their boring corporate cousin, the slide deck (which is used to drum audiences into submission). Where the moodboard is dependent on composition, adjacencies and overall tone, the storyboard is driven by order, rhythm and emphasis. On Pinterest storyboards could allow designers and directors to easily arrange a wide variety of source material, or pins of their own work, into a new narrative to share with clients.
Who would use it: Film Directors, Animators, Designers, anyone seeking to tell a linear narrative
How it could work (desktop version):
The first few steps are the same…
- Take any board - Build a board, pinning and repinning from other boards and from the web.
- Choose your tool - Open "Creative Tools" Menu and select Storyboard.
- Select images - Batch "Select Images" to check all the images from your board that you want to move into the composition layer.
- Open the composer - Thumbnails of each pin initially appear in a grid matching the order selected from the board. Sizes would be constrained to a set ration (4x3 for tablet or 16x9 for hd). Click on an image or images to select, then re-order the sequence.
- Preview the frames - The preview pane shows a single frame in the sequence, with the ability to advance forward or backward
- Edit the frames - Select a single frame to edit, allowing several options:
- Shift vertical crop - Move the image up or down to create a better vertical crop within the mask - initial crop would center vertically on the underlying image. no crops would permanently effect the pin being referenced.
- Set duration - The final presentation could be set to auto-play or manual. For auto-play individual frames could be given custom duration, to create more emphasis during a presentation.
- Set caption - Optional captions could be added to the frame, emphasizing content, acting as a script or suggesting camera movements.
- Presentation mode - Clicking presentation could present the storyboard within a minimalist, full screen canvas, playing automatically, with a set frame time, or advancing manually. Clicking on a frame at any point could summon the standard Pinterest preview to see the source.
>>> The Storyboard in presentation mode.
MINDMAPS
A hub and spoke diagram that builds connections between major themes and related topics. Mindmaps are a central part of the innovation process, letting designers map out ideas, consider adjacencies and build connections. Mindmaps on Pinterest could be a rich visual presentation, where every node and note on the map could be the starting point for deeper discovery (let's go deeper!).
Who would use it: Innovation firms, Design Strategists, Design Thinkers, Content Strategists, Information Architects
How it could work (desktop version):
- Select the pins - After selecting pins from an existing board for the mindmap, the user would go into the composition space.
- Create initial topics - The user would create a handful of topics or subtopics that for the mindmap; these would be free-floating objects that could be connected to other topics or to pins.
- Connect through proximity - Each topic and subtopic could have a “gravitional field” causing nearby pins to cluster and prompting connection when a pin is dragged nearby.
- Connect between objects - Clicking on two objects (command or shift click) could also create a connection.
- Strength of connection - Lines would be thickest between central themes and main topics, thinner between main topics and subtopics, and so on down the hierarchy.
- Changing connections - connections could be broken by a long drag away from a node, or connection type could be changed by clicking on the connecting line itself.
- Preview idea - double-click (or long tap) could summon the standard Pinterest preview.
- Add related pins to mindmap - Repins made during mindmap mode could be added directly to the composition space, and the underlying board.
- Endless space - Where the moodboard and storyboard work in a fixed space, the mindmap could pan endlessly, in any direction, feeling more like google maps, omnigraffle, sketch or autocad, than traditional page-based interfaces.
- Presentation mode - Being able to pan through the map and touch single ideas to see the underlying pin would create a powerful presentation format and turn the reverse-chronological format of boards into something much more conducive to ideation.
Enlightened Self Interest
I admit it, these concepts are inherently selfish; they spring from my own desire to use Pinterest as a way to envision and present. But there’s a huge potential audience of designers out there who would love to have their creation tools connected directly to the source of their inspiration. Broader adoption by the creative class means more awareness of Pinterest, as they begin to influence clients, the audiences that they are marketing to, and culture at large. A nice side effect is that designers will begin to understand the platform better; thinking of new ways to promote and market on Pinterest. Plus, the quantity of high quality pins will rise as all those designers start using the platform to catalog their own inspiration.