What is a mood board?
A mood board is a place where your collect inspiration for a creative project. Some designers even refer to it as an inspiration board. They can be a physical board or a digital file.
Mood boards are a great way to communicate the style and aesthetic of your project to others. It is good practice to create a mood board if you work with another person, like an illustrator. If you are tacking a project on your own, it helps your keep organized because it keeps all of your design elements in one place.
What does a mood board include?
Photos
Drawings
Colors
Fonts
Logos
Words
Textures
Notes & Explanations
Where can you find inspiration for a mood board?
You can find inspiration almost anywhere, so keep the camera on your phone ready. But if you are working on a deadline, the web is the best place to start collecting. Here are some helpful sites where you can get inspiration:
Color - Adobe Color, Design Seeds
Fonts - Creative Market, Typewolf
Photos - Unsplash, CreateHER Stock
How do I create a mood board?
In the ’90s, I used to create mood boards in my sketchbook from magazine clippings and drawings. Nowadays, we have many more options at our disposal.
When working with a client, I invite them to start a mood board on Pinterest with me. We collect inspiration for the project and discuss the design elements we like and do not like. I use websites like Adobe Colors, Creative Market, and Unsplash to create a refined mood board for our project from the Pinterest mood board. I usually use ProCreate to make our final mood board. I export it to a PDF and send it to the client for approval.
The more time I spend on this part of the project, the happier my clients are with the results. Mood boards allow us to get on the same page about visual elements that are difficult to describe in words.