Let’s say you’re planning an upcoming event. It’s a Halloween party, wedding, or another themed gathering. How do you brainstorm for it?
These days I doubt you’ll cut out pictures from magazines and make a collage. I’d wager most people will reach for Pinterest for inspiration.
Don’t get me wrong, I was one of those people. I don’t love Pinterest, but when it comes to themed inspiration, what else is there to use?
I always found Pinterest a bit clunky. So when I decided to brainstorm wedding decor ideas, I found a Google Labs tool that did a better job at helping me.
It’s called Google Mixboard, and I had so much fun with it.
I know what I want to see, but I can’t narrow it down to a few keywords
Natural language lets me explore ideas ultra casually
Using Google Mixboard is super simple. I watched this quick video from Google. It covers the gist of what it can do and how to use it.
Google Mixboard uses natural language, so you don’t need to worry about keywords or simplifying your search terms.
Tell it casually what you’d like it to show you, and it generates images based on your request. From there, you can refine the images as you go by selecting the images you want to refer to.
The great thing is that these photos pop up on your digital collage board, where you can arrange them freely.
I found this awesome for my wedding ideas. I had a vague idea of what I wanted, but every time I searched for it, it wasn’t quite right.
Having a digital conversation with Google Mixboard allowed me to really brainstorm visually and move pictures in a way that made sense to my brain.
No links to other pages, tabs for other boards or sponsored content. Just back-to-back visualizing and refining my vision.
I hit a few bumps in the road, but they were minor
Try to avoid anything open to vague interpretation
I had so much more fun with this tool than I thought I would have.
It’s really quick and casual, so I got a lot done in less time than I was expecting.
Since it relies on natural language input, I was able to tell it what I wanted without being concerned about how I phrased it.
It asked me what the context was for this table decor and then suggested other ways to refine it.
For example, I found it helpful when I wasn’t sure what else to ask, and it suggested that I might like to add candles.
Still, not everything went perfectly. I brainstormed a few images, asked it to refine them in various ways, then hit an odd roadblock when I asked it to refine the colors.
It chose a lot of baby pink and blue for the flowers, which are not in my color scheme.
Asking it to change them to neutral pastel colors didn’t work, and as I tried other color adjustments, it started messing with the lighting and applying filters.
In cases like this, I can see where I went wrong. My wording was vague and up for interpretation.
It gave me pastel versions of what was already there, and it made the lighting more neutral. But that wasn’t what I was envisioning.
I had to get a little more specific here. Not a big deal, but definitely could be frustrating for a user who doesn’t know why it’s happening.
Overall, I’d say about 85% of my requests were spot on, with the remaining 15% needing some extra tweaking afterwards.
Can Pinterest really scratch that same itch?
Mixboard was more flexible and precise
I still like to use Pinterest on occasion, and I think that it has its place in this kind of brainstorming.
For example, Pinterest can be a bit overwhelming with its results, but I like that you can easily scroll through the examples to choose what you need.
Though, as I said before, choosing the correct search terms to get the visual items you’re imagining can be a pain.
I liked Mixboard a lot because it got to the point.
Instead of bombarding me with options (many of which were not suitable for my taste), it focused on the specifics of what I was looking for. I don’t need to see a bunch of semi-related content.
I also appreciate that Pinterest includes a lot of real images. However, I’ve noticed more and more generated images popping up in my searches with no way to reliably filter them out.
The last thing I liked about Mixboard is the simplicity. There are no links to other pages or obnoxious tag titles to sort through.
The page and tools speak for themselves. It helps my mind stay focused and doesn’t give me quite as much of an ocular headache.
It doesn’t bother me as long as it’s used responsibly
I’d be remiss not to address the elephant in the room.
This is a generative AI-based tool. There is a lot of negative association with AI-created imagery, and rightly so.
I don’t like supporting artists losing jobs, creativity bleeding out of media, or AI slop in general.
But hear me out: Don’t use this tool to put anyone out of business. Use it to organize your thoughts visually.
If you have a vague notion of how something should look, let Mixboard organize these thoughts and use it like a brainstorm collage. Then create real things based on those ideas.
There’s likely a good number of people who will not enjoy this tool based on principle. And I don’t blame them.
However, even Pinterest is inundated with AI images these days, so I think you will find it hard to avoid.
It was a lot more fun than I thought, and I’m now set for my centerpiece ideas
Don’t knock it until you try it. I went in not thinking much of Mixboard but really hit my groove and played around for over an hour.
A few little tweaks here and there helped me solidify what I was thinking and move forward with the designs I was contemplating. I even nixed a few after seeing Mixboard’s results.
This is just one of the many great Google Labs tools out there now, and I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to take off in the future.
