Moodboard or floor plan: which do you show first?

Show the moodboard first in most cases. If the job is about the layout of the room, the floor plan comes first. What the client wants to know first decides the order.

Usually the moodboard first

A moodboard shows in one image how the room will feel. A client reacts to it straight away: "Yes, this is it" or "Too dark for us." A floor plan takes more work to read. Someone who is not used to drawings sees lines and measurements first.

Once the mood is right, the client looks at the floor plan differently: where does the sofa from the moodboard go? The floor plan then answers a question the client already has.

Keep the moodboard to one direction. Two or three keywords with it, such as "warm, natural, calm", give the client words to react to.

When the floor plan goes first

Start with the floor plan when the layout changes or when that is what the client asked about:

• A wall comes out, or the kitchen moves to another place.
• The client asked for more seats, a desk or a play area in the same room.
• The room has a difficult shape, such as a long narrow room or a sloping roof.

In those cases the client first wants to know if it fits. A nice moodboard for a layout that does not work yet mostly raises questions.

Link the floor plan to the products

A floor plan with only shapes tells a client very little. Put a number by each piece of furniture, and use the same number for the product on the slide before or after it. Then the client sees that the bouclé sofa is the sofa along the long wall.

In Softmint you click the drawing to place a marker, and link it to a product from the selection. You add a product by pasting the link from the webshop, see Adding a product with a link.

Whichever order you choose, keep it the same in every room. How to build a whole presentation is in How to present a concept your client understands the first time.