Pinterest Pin Design

pinterest-pin-design

A design-craft skill — design the pin's concept + composition + overlay, produce the brief, and plan the fresh-pin variants. The agent designs + briefs + critiques; a human or image tool makes the raster; WoopSocial publishes the finished pin (image + title + description + board + link).

The POV: a search result, not a post — designed to be found, saved, and clicked

A pin is a search result in a two-column mobile feed, competing at roughly half a phone screen wide (~236px in the desktop grid). Its job is the save and the outbound click, and it keeps doing that job for months (~4-month lifespan) — so a pin is an asset, not a post. Two rules anchor everything: the visual and the keyword are one unit (this skill owns the visual; pinterest-seo owns the keyword — the keyword goes in the overlay AND the title), and fresh beats frequent reposting — a "fresh pin" is a new image/layout/overlay for the same URL, not a repin, and fresh designs drive ~90% of Pinterest website traffic. Design mobile-first at feed size, always in 2:3 (1000×1500) — other ratios are penalized.

Read these first

1. brand-profile — palette/fonts/style (pins are a brand surface that must stay recognizable).
2. the destination — the page the pin links to (the visual must promise what the page delivers).
3. the keyword — from pinterest-seo (it goes in the overlay and the title).

The framework: SAVED

(Depth: references/the-saved-framework.md.)

• S — Stop the scroll on a 2:3 canvas: 1000×1500, 2:3 mandatory (other ratios penalized/cropped); one focal point; vertical composition; lifestyle/in-context imagery beats sterile product-on-white; parseable at feed size.
• A — Anchor the keyword overlay: the pinterest-seo keyword rendered large on the image (Pinterest OCR-reads it); ≤~6 words, bold, high contrast, readable at ~236px; top-third or center; not a caption duplicate.
• V — Visual brand system: a pin template family (from design-and-templates) — consistent fonts/ palette/layout; subtle logo/URL, never bottom-right (Pinterest's own icons overlay that corner).
• E — Every URL gets fresh variants: 3–5 visually distinct designs per destination (different image
  • layout + overlay angle — not a color swap); each is a new chance to rank.
• D — Decide the format + hand off: static pin = the traffic workhorse (has the link); video pin (9:16, 6–15s) = engagement; multi-slide/idea-style = awareness (historically no outbound link); board covers set the shelf aesthetic; brief → image tool → WoopSocial publishes.

The reality (verify-quarterly)

Feed-size mobile-first (two-column feed, ~236px, ~85% mobile); 2:3 1000×1500 mandatory (other ratios penalized, tall pins truncated); overlay text OCR-read (keyword on the image); lifestyle/in-context imagery; faces optional (product/idea is usually the hero — unlike YouTube thumbnails); safe zones (margins, logo not bottom-right, nothing critical in the bottom of extra-tall pins); fresh-pin economics (~90% of traffic, 3–5 distinct designs/URL, few-day test window); video 9:16 6–15s; idea pins folding into the unified format; brand consistency without clone-stamping: references/pin-design-2026-reality.md. The pin brief template, design checklist, spec block, fresh-variant plan + worked examples: references/design-and-variant-recipes.md.

Honest scope (never violate)

• The agent designs the concept/composition/overlay text, writes the brief, plans the fresh variants, and can critique a mockup — but a HUMAN or an image/design tool (ideogram for in-image text / canva / nano-banana / a designer) creates the final raster.
• WoopSocial publishes the finished pin — image + title + description + board (pinterestBoardId) + link — it does NOT design, render, or generate the visual, and analytics are native Pinterest Analytics, not WoopSocial.
• No misleading pins — the visual must promise what the page delivers (Pin → Board → Page must match; long clicks rank you, bounces punish you). No repin-as-fresh dupes (a color swap is not a fresh pin). Disclose AI imagery (Pinterest lets users filter GenAI). Never fabricate saves/clicks/ impressions. (Scope, distinctions + connections: references/scope-and-connections.md.)

Distinct from its siblings (route correctly)

pinterest-pin-design (this) = the pin's VISUAL craft + brief + fresh-variant plan · pinterest-seo = the keyword/search-RANKING layer (they PAIR — the keyword goes in the overlay AND the title) · pinterest-growth = the account strategy/cadence (boards, 72h same-URL spacing, seasonal timing) · design-and-templates = the brand template SYSTEM (the pin template is one asset in it) · ideogram/ canva/nano-banana = render the raster this briefs · thumbnail-design = the same craft for YouTube's 16:9 click decision (different job: click-to-watch vs save-and-click-out).

Where this connects

Reads first: brand-profile + the destination + the keyword from pinterest-seo. Pairs with: pinterest-seo (keyword in the overlay + title), image-prompt → ideogram (in-image overlay text)/ nano-banana/flux (backgrounds), canva (template production), ai-image-editing (crops/cleanup), design-and-templates (the pin template in the brand system). Routes to/from: pinterest-growth (strategy/cadence), content-recycling (which URLs deserve fresh variants), seasonal-and-moment-marketing (45–90-day seasonal lead). Publishes via: scheduling-and-queue → WoopSocial (image + title + description

• board + link) + platform-specs-and-validation. Measures with: native Pinterest Analytics + analytics-and-reporting (saves, outbound clicks, impressions). The raster stays with the image tools/ designer; the words stay with pinterest-seo.

Definition of done

A 2:3 (1000×1500) vertical concept with one focal point in lifestyle/in-context imagery, parseable at feed size; the pinterest-seo keyword rendered as a bold, high-contrast overlay (≤~6 words, OCR-readable, no caption duplicate); brand-consistent template (fonts/palette/layout) with the logo out of the bottom-right; safe margins and nothing critical lost to tall-pin truncation; 3–5 visually distinct fresh designs planned per destination URL (new image + layout + overlay angle, never a repin/color swap); the right format chosen (static for traffic, video 9:16 6–15s for engagement, multi-slide for awareness) and board covers consistent; the raster briefed to an image tool/designer and the finished pin published via WoopSocial (image + title + description + board + link); the visual honest to the destination; AI imagery disclosed; no fabricated engagement; correctly paired with pinterest-seo and distinguished from pinterest-growth, design-and-templates, and the image tools.