What is a Mood Board?
A mood board is another one of those mysterious terms that is being thrown around a lot lately, especially in the design and photography worlds, and it's not as scary as you might think! In fact, it’s really fun, and a great activity to get the inspiration flowing.
So what exactly is a mood board? It is, essentially, a ‘board’ of images/words/textures that create or evoke the mood or feeling behind your brand or idea. This can be a physical board - whether a bulletin board or a wall in your space that you adorn with various cutouts and materials, from fabric bits to photos to magazine cuttings. My studio wall is a great example of this - I used washi tape to organize this mini mood board that’s currently inspiring me.
Here, I’ve taped up cutouts from Kinfolk Magazine, a few tiny paintings I made, a weaving sample, a map of Iceland, and some inspirational words including some Psalms and an essay on living in the moment.
A digital mood board is also a great option for collecting thoughts and ideas to build a brand! I always encourage my clients to use Pinterest to build a mood board during the brand discovery process - Pinterest makes it easy to save ideas from across the Internet, and to upload your own images. I’ve even built my own mood boards for various personal projects, including Hearthling, a homewares business.
And lastly, sometimes I build mood boards in Illustrator or Photoshop - creating a custom collage or grid of imagery that my client is inspired by. This helps develop the feel of a brand, and also plays a big part in the color palette process. Much of the time, the client is unaware of their desired colors until I put together some images from their Pinterest board in a curated collage, and suddenly the colors are obvious! It also helps to create one of these and use it as a screensaver or desktop background to help keep the brand’s visual focus clear.
I hope this made mood boards a little less mysterious, and inspired you to start creating! I urge you to start out creating boards on Pinterest and see where they take you - they are so much fun, and invaluable in demonstrating a specific visual direction for a brand.
Building a mood board can be awfully addicting - you may find that you are ready to take your brand to the next level! That next step may just be hiring a brand designer, as you begin to realize how important it is to be visually consistent to reach the right clients. Is the process of branding a little overwhelming? (I wouldn’t blame you if it was!). I am here to help. Drop me a line and let’s talk about your project!
