Interior Designer Portfolio with 3D Mood Board Builder

Problem and target customer

Why this exists

Customer problem

Independent interior designers rely on generic portfolio platforms or static galleries that do not capture visitor intent. Prospects browse and leave without expressing their style preferences, so designers cannot prioritize qualified leads or tailor follow-up conversations.

Who pays

Independent interior designers and small design studios who need a production-ready portfolio site that converts browsing visitors into qualified project inquiries.

Business model

A monthly subscription giving the designer a hosted portfolio with mood board builder, style quiz, and lead inbox. A paid tier adds custom branding, multiple projects, and lead export.

Editorial note

This portfolio site turns passive browsing into qualified intent. Visitors assemble a 3D mood board from the designer's curated swatches and furniture items, then complete a short style quiz that maps their answers to design tags. When they submit an inquiry, the designer receives a lead with a mood board snapshot and quiz summary—enough context to prioritize follow-up without a discovery call.

The MVP keeps one workflow: browse, build, quiz, submit. Multi-user collaboration, invoicing, and proposal generation are out of scope. The quiz uses deterministic scoring against design tags rather than an LLM, so the first version ships without generative API dependencies.

Choose your next step

What do you need next?

Evaluate the operating tradeoffs quickly, or inspect how to build the MVP.

Evaluate this ideaSee the cost and deployment preview

Compare the three operating paths at the default workload before opening the full calculator.

See cost preview Build this ideaInspect the build blueprint

Review MVP scope, workflow, states, data rules, architecture, and acceptance criteria.

Open blueprint

Evaluation preview

What would it take to run?

Directional infrastructure estimates for the current 1,500 relationship records assumption. Open the full calculator when you are ready to change it.

Open full cost and deployment

ManagedSelected

$25-$65/ month

Managed app hosting, database, backups, and basic observability for the crm workflow.

Lowest operating effort

Lean self-hosted

$8-$28/ month

One small VPS running the app, database, media volume, and backup job.

Lowest baseline cost

More control

$45-$125/ month

Separate app, data, storage, and worker capacity for cleaner operations.

Most separation and control

Build blueprint

Build the first paid use case

Product goal

Who it serves and what it must change

Target user: Independent interior designer who needs a portfolio site that captures qualified leads
Problem: Static portfolio galleries give visitors no way to express style preferences, so designers cannot prioritize or personalize follow-up
Measurable outcome: At least 10% of unique visitors who open a project detail page complete a mood board or quiz and submit an inquiry

MVP scope

What ships now and what waits

Included

Project gallery with detail pages
3D mood board builder with draggable swatches and furniture items
Five-question style quiz with deterministic tag scoring
Lead form with mood board snapshot and quiz attachment
Designer lead inbox with status tracking

Excluded

Multi-designer team accounts
Ecommerce checkout
Automated proposal generation
Calendar scheduling
Advanced analytics

UX and user flow

Screens, actions, and states

Portfolio Home

Showcase project gallery grid with hero image and designer bio

Browse projectsOpen project detailStart mood board

Project Detail

Display project photos, description, and materials with a lead capture CTA

View image galleryRead project descriptionSubmit inquiry from project page

Mood Board Builder

3D canvas where visitors drag swatches and furniture items to express style

Drag items onto canvasArrange and resize itemsSave mood board snapshot

Style Quiz

Five-question quiz mapping answers to design tags

Answer room type and budgetSelect color paletteChoose aesthetic preferences

Lead Inbox

Designer view of captured leads with quiz summary and mood board image

Review lead detailsView mood board snapshotUpdate lead status

Primary flow

Visitor opens Portfolio Home
Visitor opens a Project Detail page
Visitor launches Mood Board Builder and arranges items
Visitor completes Style Quiz
Visitor submits lead form with name and email
Designer reviews lead in Lead Inbox

Loading, empty, and error states

Visitor: browsing
Visitor: building mood board
Visitor: taking quiz
Visitor: submitted inquiry
Lead: new, reviewed, contacted, archived

Core entity outline

Entities and business rules

Project

Portfolio entry with images, description, and materials

Fields: id, title, description, images, design_tags, created_at
Relations: Has many MoodBoard snapshots, Has many Leads

MoodBoard

Visitor-assembled canvas of swatches and furniture items

Fields: id, session_id, items, snapshot_url, created_at
Relations: Belongs to Lead, References Project items

QuizResult

Scored style quiz answers mapped to design tags

Fields: id, session_id, answers, design_tags, score, created_at
Relations: Belongs to Lead

Lead

Captured visitor inquiry with mood board and quiz context

Fields: id, name, email, project_notes, mood_board_id, quiz_result_id, status, created_at
Relations: Has one MoodBoard, Has one QuizResult

SwatchItem

Curated swatch or furniture item available in the mood board builder

Fields: id, name, type, image_url, design_tags
Relations: Referenced by MoodBoard items

Business rules

A lead cannot be submitted without a name and valid email
Quiz scoring maps each answer to one or more design tags and sums tag frequencies
Mood board snapshots are saved as image URLs in object storage before lead submission
Lead status transitions: new → reviewed → contacted → archived
Anonymous mood boards expire after 7 days if no lead is attached

Architecture and data flow

Components, integrations, and controls

Portfolio Frontend

Render gallery, project details, mood board canvas, quiz, and lead form

Quiz Scoring Service

Accept quiz answers and return scored design tags

Mood Board Renderer

Capture canvas state and generate snapshot image for storage

Lead API

Create lead records with attached mood board and quiz references

Email Notification

Send designer a notification when a new lead is captured

Integrations

Supabase Postgres for projects, mood boards, quiz results, and leads
Supabase Storage for project images and mood board snapshots
Make scenario for lead notification email via transactional email provider
Railway-hosted service for quiz scoring and snapshot rendering

Data flow

Visitor interacts with frontend; mood board state held in client
On quiz submit, frontend calls quiz scoring service on Railway
On lead submit, frontend saves mood board snapshot to Supabase Storage
Frontend creates lead record in Supabase with mood board and quiz references
Supabase webhook triggers Make scenario to email designer

Failure handling

If snapshot upload fails, lead form shows retry and retains canvas state
If quiz scoring service is unavailable, quiz still submits with raw answers and tags computed on retry
If email notification fails, lead record still persists with status new
If Supabase is unreachable, frontend queues lead locally and retries on reconnect

Security

Lead form requires name and email validation
Designer inbox access gated by Supabase auth
Object storage buckets private with signed URLs for snapshots
Rate limit lead submissions to 5 per session per hour

Rate limits

Lead submissions: 5 per visitor session per hour
Mood board saves: 20 per visitor session per hour
Quiz submissions: 3 per visitor session per hour

Deliverables and acceptance

Definition of done for the MVP

Deliverables

Deployed portfolio site with five sample projects
Functional 3D mood board builder with at least 30 swatch and furniture items
Five-question style quiz with deterministic scoring
Lead form that saves mood board snapshot and quiz results
Designer lead inbox with status management

Acceptance criteria

A visitor can browse the gallery, open a project, and submit an inquiry from the project detail page without errors
A visitor can drag at least 10 items onto the mood board canvas, arrange them, and save a snapshot that appears in the lead record
Quiz answers produce at least three design tags that are stored with the lead
A new lead appears in the designer inbox within 60 seconds of submission with mood board image and quiz summary visible
Lead status can be updated from new to reviewed to contacted to archived without data loss

Recommended stack

Enough technology for the first version

Frontend

Lovable

Rapid visual portfolio and mood board canvas with React components and Tailwind styling.

Backend

Supabase

Postgres for leads, mood boards, and projects plus storage for uploaded images.

Automation

Make

Glue layer to send lead notification emails and sync mood board snapshots to the designer inbox.

Hosting

Railway

Deploy the backend API and scheduled jobs with simple environment management.

Why this is sufficient

Lovable handles the visual portfolio and interactive mood board canvas without custom 3D engineering. Supabase provides durable records for leads and mood boards with built-in object storage for images. Make sends transactional emails when a lead is captured. Railway hosts any server-side logic or scheduled tasks that fall outside Supabase's edge functions.

Not required for the MVP

LLM API for the MVP—quiz scoring uses deterministic tag matching, not generative outputAdvanced analytics modulePayment gatewayCalendar integration

Next stepTurn the blueprint into an execution plan

Copy the build prompt, model the operating cost, and choose where to deploy.

Build and ship

Execution

Build, price, and deploy the MVP

Once the blueprint is clear, use the prompt, cost model, and deployment options to start building.

Build prompt

Copy this into a builder

Lovable

Build prompt

Your build prompt is ready

Open the prompt pack whenever you are ready to take this blueprint into your builder.

Based on the blueprintReady for your builderFollow-up steps included

Cost calculator

Model the MVP operating cost

A technical run-cost estimate for the first production version. Team, acquisition, payment fees, and business COGS are excluded.

Estimated monthly total$25-$65

$13-$33 per 750 relationship records

Relationship records updated / month1,500 relationship records

Selected pathEasiest

Pricing checkedAug 2, 2026

Cost breakdown

$25-$65 per month

Low and high values allow for usage variance and plan headroom.

Managed infrastructure

Managed app hosting, database, backups, and basic observability for the crm workflow.

50K relationship records included, then $8-$20 per 100K relationship records

$25-$65

Transactional email

Transactional email is implied by the source workflow or feature list.

3K relationship records included

Included

Application hosting
Relational database
Basic backups
appointments, availability, and intake details state
Transactional email

Not included

Paid acquisition
Founder or team time
Tax or legal review
Custom enterprise procurement

Pricing basis

The estimate combines the selected infrastructure path, required operating modules, selected optional modules, and usage above included monthly allowances. Taxes and regional uplifts are excluded.

Managed app baseline Resend pricing

Deployment options

Pick the operational tradeoff

Choose based on operating preference, not only the headline price.

EasiestRecommended

Railway

Fast Docker deployment for the app, database, worker, and preview workflow without managing a VPS.

$15-90/month before usage-heavy add-ons

Good fit

Fast setup
Low starting cost
Good preview workflow

Limitation

Usage billing needs active monitoring as traffic and jobs grow.

Open Railway

Cheapest

Vultr

Run the app, worker, and database on one small Vultr VPS with Docker Compose and explicit backups.

$8-60/month before managed add-ons

Good fit

Predictable baseline
Portable setup
Room for workers

Limitation

You own patching, backups, monitoring, and incident response.

Deploy on Vultr View the lean VPS guide

More control

DigitalOcean

Separate application, worker, data, storage, and backup responsibilities as the workload grows.

$10-120/month before managed add-ons

Good fit

Cloud VPS control
Global regions
Room for workers

Limitation

You own server setup, patching, backups, and operational monitoring.

Explore DigitalOcean View the separated cloud guide

Start building

Prototype, automate, then deploy

Recommended route

01Vibe-coding builderPortfolio and mood board frontend

Build the project gallery, project detail pages, 3D mood board canvas with draggable items, style quiz, and lead form in Lovable with Tailwind and warm off-white serif styling.

Open Lovable 02AutomationLead notification automation

Configure a Make scenario that triggers on new lead creation in Supabase, sends a notification email to the designer, and optionally posts a summary to a webhook for the inbox view.

Open Make 03DeployBackend API and scheduled jobs

Deploy a lightweight Node or Python service on Railway to handle quiz scoring, mood board image rendering, and any scheduled cleanup of anonymous mood board drafts.

Open Railway

Interior Designer Portfolio with 3D Mood Board Builder

Is this worth validating?

Build this if

Avoid this if

Validate first

Why this exists

Customer problem

Who pays

Business model

What do you need next?

What would it take to run?

Build the first paid use case

Who it serves and what it must change

What ships now and what waits

Included

Excluded

Screens, actions, and states

Primary flow

Loading, empty, and error states

Entities and business rules

Business rules

Components, integrations, and controls

Integrations

Data flow

Failure handling

Security

Rate limits

Definition of done for the MVP

Deliverables

Acceptance criteria

Enough technology for the first version

Lovable

Supabase

Make

Railway

Why this is sufficient

Not required for the MVP

Build, price, and deploy the MVP

Copy this into a builder

Your build prompt is ready

Model the MVP operating cost

Usage assumptions

$25-$65 per month

Included

Not included

Pricing basis

Pick the operational tradeoff

Railway

Good fit

Limitation

Vultr

Good fit

Limitation

DigitalOcean

Good fit

Limitation

Prototype, automate, then deploy

Related ideas

Pediatric Clinic Digital Intake & Visit Prep Portal

Home Renovation Contractor Bid & Lead Tracker

Creative Agency Task Hub with Client-Facing Portal

BuildBid: Residential Contractor Lead Capture & Estimator

Roofing Contractor Lead Capture Site with Instant Estimate Calculator

Multi-Trade Project Request Hub for GCs