Ready to learn how to create a moodboard? Before we get into the technicalities of whether a moodboard is one word or two, let’s start by explaining what it is.
What is a moodboard?
A moodboard is a visual guide that helps us put together and communicate ideas, concepts, and anything visual under the sun. It’s an intentional process to map out a plan and align a particular idea, goal, style, or concept.
Why do we need a moodboard?
Statistically speaking, 90 percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. So having a moodboard helps us organize and build a place to save images, patterns, fonts, styles, and ideas we love and work hard towards a particular outcome. It helps guide the process and helps communicate the direction not only for the person working on a project, but it helps keep everyone on the same page working on that particular project.
What’s included in a moodboard?
There are no hard and fast rules when creating a moodboard, which we love. You can have the creativity and flexibility to pull any and all types of inspiration that aligns with your concept!
What’s included in the moodboards we create at Sung & Co will change slightly depending on the project or client we’re working with, but a few things we do include in our moodboards are:
- Favorite Brands
- Office Spaces
- Fashion Inspiration
- Design Inspiration
- Fonts
- Product Photography
- Photography Styles
- Digital Products
How do you create a moodboard?
Again, there are no hard and fast rules to how you create a moodboard. You can collect images on Pinterest and create a board to share with your team or collect images and save them to the cloud.
You can print images out and hang them up on a wall so you can see how everything fits together. Another option is to create a board in your project management tool and upload everything there.
Need some step-by-step guidance on how to create a moodboard?
Here is a step-by-step to use as a reference:
- Make sure you have a goal, concept, or direction in mind. When you do, you’re able to be clear on what type of inspiration or images to include into your moodboard instead of having a hodgepodge of different things that don’t really relate.
- Start gathering inspiration. You might come across a font that will look great for your project…or maybe you came across a pattern that reminds you of your brand. Whether it’s the way someone dresses or how someone’s office space is set up, grab any and all inspiration that aligns with your goal or direction of the project.
- Organize your moodboard into specific categories and see if there are any repeating patterns. If you notice anything that jumps out, take notes! And if there’s anything that doesn’t fit, take it out. You want to condense your moodboard as much as you can so you only include things that fit into your goal.
- Take notes and explain your ideas of why you chose to include a specific image or resource into the moodboard. You may think you remember why you pulled that one piece of inspiration, but getting your thoughts on paper will help you remember why and how it all fits in the bigger picture.
- Collaborate and ask for feedback! Sometimes when we’re working on things in a silo, we don’t see our blind spots. Get some feedback from the team to see if anything doesn’t make sense or something is misaligned. Maybe there’s a missing gap that needs to be addressed!
How you create a moodboard is totally up to you! It’s a tool that helps you put together and communicate your ideas, concepts, and styles. So however you create a moodboard, we hope you’re intentional throughout the process.
Now whether or not a moodboard is one or two words, that’s still up for debate!
Until next time,
Happy Branding!
