Mood board: not us

Images that are not us: things we don't want the brand to look or feel like. Kept separate from moodboard so the two don't get confused. Context is in the user's own words where given. Images are stored in assets/ with the rest.

Photo: yoga class on a lake pavilion under a bright blue sky

• A bright, saturated colour photograph of a group sitting on yoga mats on a wooden platform with a bamboo roof, facing an instructor, with a lake, green hills and a blue sky with white clouds beyond.
• Context from the user: none given yet, only that this is a "not us" image.
• Noticing: this is polished wellness-retreat imagery, with bright, high-saturation colour, a framed picturesque view, sportswear and an aspirational lifestyle feel. It stands against the grainy, muted, hand-made images on the main moodboard.

Screenshot: three food and drink e-commerce landing pages

• A screenshot of three product landing pages shown as tilted cards on a design-gallery board, each tagged "Food & Drinks" (with sub-tags Chocolate, Microgreens and Honey). From the left they are a drinking-chocolate page (pure melt), a microgreens subscription page (Genki, "Get your daily greens", €2,50 p/day, a green "Get your daily greens!" button) and an Italian honey gift page for companies ("Aggiungi Miele al Natale della Tua Azienda", €25,00).
• Context from the user: none given yet, only that this is a "not us" image.
• Noticing: these are conversion-focused shop pages with price tags, star ratings, quantity pickers, bright call-to-action buttons and cream or pastel backgrounds with chunky friendly type. They are selling a product, which is the opposite of the quiet, contemplative tone of the main moodboard.

Website: Kempinski, "Experience Raw Luxury"

• Source: https://www.kempinski.com/
• A screenshot of a luxury hotel website's hero (Kempinski Palace Engelberg, Titlis, Swiss Alps). A full-bleed, dark, warm-lit video still of a bartender shaking a cocktail fills the frame, with a large light serif headline, "Experience Raw Luxury", centred over it. The header has a menu icon, a language switcher, a centred crest logo, "Sign in" and an outlined "Book now" button.
• Context from the user: "we are not that".
• Noticing: this is luxury and hospitality branding, with cinematic video, a refined serif, gold and amber low light and a booking call to action. It sells exclusivity and an experience, and that is the opposite of the grounded, hand-made, non-exclusive feel of the main moodboard.

Website: Dragonfruit Media, "Become a top 1% brand on YouTube."

• Source: https://www.dragonfruitmedia.co/
• A screenshot of an agency homepage hero. A blurred red and white gradient fills the frame, with a large white serif headline, "Become a top 1% brand on YouTube.", a "Reserve your spot" pill button reading "2 slots left for October", and a row of client logos along the bottom (e.l.f., Y Combinator, Linktree, Flow Research Collective, Maven, ClickUp, GymLaunch).
• Why it's not us (the user's words): "very corporate. Techie". It is "too aggressive", and the quote "become a top 1%" is part of that. It builds credibility through the logos of the companies they have worked for, so "there's no depth".
• Summary: corporate and techie in tone, aggressive in its claims, and its credibility is borrowed from client logos instead of coming from depth. This is the opposite of the grounded, hand-made feel of the main moodboard.
• Side note: it uses red, as several main-board images do, but in a glossy digital way and not the hand-printed way of the Baobab print or the calligraphy.

Website: Sereth, "Brand stewardship for organizations who give a crap."

• A screenshot of a brand agency's homepage. A blue announcement bar at the top reads "Snag our Website Prep Guide now available in our shop." Below it, a cream page with a blue script logo ("sereth"), small-caps monospaced navigation (Work, Services, Resources, About, Inquire) and a large blue serif headline, "Brand stewardship for organizations who give a crap.", with "give a crap" in italic. A large photo below shows a laptop on a table displaying a client site (Global Doula Project) with a smiling featured recipient's portrait and testimonial text.
• Why it's not us (the user's words): "a bit more subtle" than the others. It has the cream and it is elegant, but it "doesn't have enough personality and character" and is "a bit too plain".
• Summary: close to us in palette and elegance, but too plain, without enough personality or character. It is the near miss, so it marks the line the main moodboard has to stay on the right side of. Tasteful isn't enough.
• My own observations: it is warmer and more human than the Dragonfruit page above, with a cream and blue palette, an elegant serif and a real client portrait, but it is still an agency selling its services (the shop banner, the Inquire button and the case study).

Website: Perspectiva, Systems, Souls, Society

• Source: https://systems-souls-society.com/
• A screenshot of the homepage. A full-width, saturated video still of neon pink, red and yellow reflections on a wet street fills the top, with a tilted white "PERSPECTIVA" wordmark and the words "Systems / Souls / Society" in white sans-serif. Below, a periwinkle-purple band shows scattered white question marks and the heading "What is Perspectiva?" in italic serif, followed by the text "Perspectiva is a community of expert generalists working on an urgent one hundred year project to improve the relationships between systems, souls and society in theory and practice."
• Context from the user: this is "not us", but they are "a bit in our same field".
• Why it's not us (the user's words): "too clean, too contemporary", "too sleek". It "feels a bit plain and with no personality" and "very corporate".
• Summary: the closest to us in subject matter of any "not us" image, so it matters most as a warning about the look. It is sleek and contemporary, and it reads as corporate and without personality, even though the subject is deeper. This is the opposite of the grainy, hand-made, aged main moodboard. Its glowing colour overlaps a little with some main-board images, but the finish is digital and slick.

Website: Perspectiva, essay grid with warped word overlays

• Source: the same site as the previous entry (https://systems-souls-society.com/), a second screen from it.
• A grid of essay cards. Each has a tall, slanted-edged stock photo with a single word set in white and bent or scattered across it (activism, history, education, worldview, spiritual, climate, equality). Under each photo are a serif title, an italic author name in muted purple and a small outlined "ESSAY" tag. Essay titles include "The Solipsistic Society: from stuckness to collective unfolding" and "Education is the Metacrisis".
• Context from the user: "a secondary image of their thing", and "automatically I think a bit like wellness, we're not in the wellness business".
• Why it's not us (the user's words): it reads as wellness, and "we're not in the wellness business".
• My own observations: the photos are polished stock imagery of the kind often used in wellness and lifestyle content (a hand in water, water droplets, soft light), and the warped lettering is a slick digital effect. This ties back to the yoga class image earlier on this board, and to the earlier Perspectiva entry's reasons. See moodboard for the opposite: grainy, archival and hand-made.

Website: Plum Village, "What is happening"

• Source: https://plumvillage.org/
• A screenshot of the news page. A large central photo shows a figure seen from behind with arms raised, standing in golden sunset light beside a smaller child, with a "Book Extract / Our Original Nature" headline in brown serif underneath. On the left are a photo of a retreat group lined up on a lawn below a mountain and a soft illustrated scene of trees with roots. A side column advertises "Upcoming Days of Mindfulness".
• Context from the user: the website is "not us". The user said the real organisation may be better than this, but the site communicates a certain feel.
• Why it's not us (the user's words): "a bit too woo-woo alternative, like feel good", such as the picture of "people rising to the sun". It reads as wellness, "and we're not that". There is "no acknowledgement of the shadow", "no rigor" and "no depth". It's "just feel good. And meditate", "happy, clappy". They added that "overall, it may not be that, but it communicates that."
• Summary: the sunlit, arms-raised imagery and the feel-good tone signal uncritical positivity, with no shadow and no rigour. The point is about what it communicates, not necessarily what the organisation is. This is the clearest statement so far of the wellness line, together with the Perspectiva essay grid, and it connects to the yoga class. The main moodboard keeps the dark and the difficult in view, as in the first collage, where the sun comes through grey clouds.

Photo: Plum Village t-shirt with a gold Zen circle, seen from behind

• Source: a Plum Village t-shirt (see the Plum Village website entry above).
• A photograph of a person from behind, wearing a plain black t-shirt with a large gold brush-stroke circle (an enso) and a small red seal stamp printed on the back, with grey jeans. The setting is a warm, softly blurred hall with stone walls and golden fabric.
• Why it's not us (the user's words): it makes them "feel very uncomfortable". It has "no style really", "unelegant". It is Zen "turned into a logo", and there's a danger of turning a thing like this into merchandise. It feels "a bit mass" and "very hippie". They described a hippie style that is almost caring about how you look, but in an unaesthetic way, with baggy clothes and a "lack of care". Their objection is that it shows "almost a lack of rigor in how they would dress".
• Summary: the problem isn't the circle itself. It's the merchandise treatment and the casual, unrefined hippie look, which reads as a lack of care and rigour. This is the opposite of the hand-made, carefully made images on the main moodboard, such as the calligraphy, which is a real brush gesture and not a logo.
• Left out on purpose: the user's remarks about the model's physical appearance. The point is about the styling and the merch, and I haven't recorded personal comments about a real person.

Website: Aura Labs, immersive media art in Berlin

• A screenshot of a media-art venue's homepage. A full-bleed photo shows a room whose walls and floor are covered in saturated, kaleidoscopic neon patterns (purples, pinks, greens, red) with a single person standing in it. Over it are a blue "Buy tickets" button, a "Last chance, exhibition only until Sunday, September 13, 2026" banner, the heavy white all-caps headline "BERLIN'S UNIQUE SPACE FOR MEDIA ART.", a paragraph about "groundbreaking technology" meeting "artistic vision" and a blue "Discover the works" button.
• Context from the user: none given yet, only that this is a "not us" image (the tenth in this batch, counting the three shop pages as one).
• Noticing: this is a loud, high-saturation, tech-forward immersive experience, with a ticket-selling urgency banner, heavy sans-serif caps and bright blue buttons. It is the opposite in finish to the hand-made, muted, grainy main moodboard, though it shares some pattern and symmetry with the gold sun and the kaleidoscopic mandala idea. I don't know the exact reason it's "not us", so tell me and I'll replace my note with your words.

Website: Aura Labs, ratings and "Digital heartbeat in Berlin"

• A second screen from the same site as the previous entry. At the top is a large "4,7" average rating with five gold stars, and three star-rated review quotes ("Grandiose exhibition. A must.", "Absolutely recommended! Also for kids." and "Every cent and every second worth!"). Below, on a light grey page, the heading "Digital heartbeat in Berlin.", a paragraph about a "compact, intense experience" and a "generative exhibition that reacts to you – exclusive, innovative, and only found in Berlin", a "Discover the works" link and a photo of a person in front of neon purple and cyan light trails. The blue "Buy tickets" button stays in the header.
• Context from the user: none given yet, only that it is "not us" (same site as the previous entry).
• Noticing: this is social proof built from star ratings and review quotes, with "exclusive, innovative" language and a clean, rounded, tech-style layout. It leans on a score and testimonials for credibility, and that is the same pattern as the logo wall on the Dragonfruit entry. I'm not sure of your reason, so tell me and I'll update the note. See the moodboard for the opposite.