A creative direction deck
the whole crew reads the same way.

Ten frames usually cover it: the line; tone words and not-words; light; colour; composition; casting and styling; type and graphic language; do and don't pairs; the channels; and sign-off. Words come before pictures so the references are judged against them, and sign-off comes last so the deck records what was agreed.

The creative direction deck sets the idea and how it should feel across the whole campaign: the line, the tone and the rules every channel follows. An art direction deck turns that into the specific look of one execution, such as a shoot or a layout system, down to set, props, wardrobe and lighting. Small teams often combine them; larger productions keep both.

Eight to twelve per group is a common shape. Cut until every image earns its caption, and move favourites you cannot defend to a frame of alternates the client never sees. A group of thirty tells the team you have not chosen, and each person will choose for you.

Take them from the brand strategy and the brief, not from the references. Choose three that describe the work and three that name its nearest wrong turn rather than its opposite: "confident, not loud" helps a photographer on set, while "confident, not shy" does not. Test them on a real frame, and if they cannot settle whether it belongs, sharpen them.

The same subject, shot or set up identically except for the one thing the rule is about: side light against flat front light, a handheld crop against a locked-off one, the accent colour on product against the accent everywhere. When a pair differs in several ways at once, the team cannot tell which difference matters.

Decide what is fixed and what flexes. Palette, light and casting usually hold everywhere; crop, type size, pace and the amount of copy change with the format. Give each channel one frame: a billboard with a single image and a few words, a vertical story with the type clear of the interface, a product page where the product sits on the palette's neutral.

One person on each side with the authority to hold it: usually the client's brand or marketing lead, and your creative director or executive creative director. Record who signed and when on the sign-off frame, with the decisions that are fixed and the ones still open. Direction agreed by a group with no named owner tends to be reopened by whoever joins the project late.

Walk the crew through it ahead of the shoot to settle open items, then check selects, edits and retouches against the matching frame. If the direction changes, redraw that frame and date it, so the whole team sees the change at once. In Storyflow the signed frames can share a board with the shot list, so nobody works from an old export.

It can start one. Storyflow's AI turns a brief into a first pass of reference groups with its brand moodboard and moodboard workflows, proposes swatches with its colour palette workflow, and can produce a lookbook or presentation PDF from the finished board. On Pro and Max it can also generate reference images. Treat its references as placeholders to swap for your own, because the line, the six words and the choices are yours.

When the deck itself is a designed deliverable: a pitch where slide typography is judged, or a brand book with a strict layout grid. They give exact slide layouts, themes and typography that Storyflow does not. Build and agree the direction in Storyflow first, then lay out the final slides in one of them if the audience expects it.

Not during early access. Storyflow is paid-only during early access, with plans from $7.99 a month billed annually ($9.99 monthly). A free plan launches before the end of 2026, and anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free. The photographers, stylists and editors you invite pay nothing.