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The purpose of a mood board is to flesh out, visualize and communicate ideas. Whether you work in a design-focused industry or have plans for the future, using a mood board can help you cultivate your vision for a project or achieve your goals.
Learn why mood boards are powerful and why you should use them.
Mood boards are collages of images, typography and other materials used to visually communicate an idea or concept. Designers often create mood boards to showcase their visions for projects, giving them a general idea of what the end product should include and look like.
Whether a visual learner or prefers hands-on experiences, mood boards are excellent resources for work and everyday life. They help you organize your project concepts and serve as a communication tool when you must collaborate with others or present ideas to clients.
Creating mood boards can give you a clear understanding of your project. Mood boards help you throughout the entire production process, from the initial design to the finished product. They will keep you on track so you can achieve your desired outcome.
Creating new designs and achieving goals is challenging when you don’t clearly focus on what you want or need. A mood board helps you formulate a project or goal’s beginnings without losing sight of the big picture.
Regardless of your profession, you can benefit from making mood boards. Some of the advantages include:
Finding inspiration is essential when you don’t know how to start a project. A mood board helps you gather all your thoughts and ideas into one place, making it easier for you to make creative decisions later in the process.
While making your mood board, you can find clarity in the direction you want to follow.
Having a physical visualization of concepts for projects helps everyone involved understand the vision better. The design has many abstract topics that make it challenging for people to grasp. Mood boards can help you create a concrete visual representation of your intentions, which you can further explain as your audience looks.
Additionally, you and your team can work together on a mood board, tying in everyone’s ideas at once. Digital mood boards make collaboration easy because multiple people can access the file or account and work on brainstorming simultaneously.
The collaborative aspect of mood boards makes receiving feedback from team members and clients easier.
A mood board also provides flexibility for projects as they undergo various reviews and modifications throughout the process. Plans change and so do mood boards. You can pin items to a corkboard, hold photos with magnets or even use digital programs to make adding, removing, and changing parts even easier.
Working with mood boards helps you stay on track for completing projects. While you’ll discover new ideas, themes, and changes during the design and development stages, your overall goal will remain the same. Once your mood board stops changing, you can settle on a final design and work toward reaching your goals.
While mood boards help you organize your ideas and concepts, they also remind you why you’re working on a project and its importance.
You can use mood boards as part of your presentation to clients. A mood board can help you communicate your ideas and show clients how each component works together and why they’re crucial. You can also foster stronger relationships with your clients.
Some clients already have a vision for their project but find it challenging to explain the purpose of a mood board. You and your client can collaborate on a mood board to ensure you know exactly what the client wants. With everyone on the same page, you can complete the job knowing the results meet your client’s expectations.
Now that you know why you should make a mood board, it’s time to start! Get inspired and unleash your creativity to enjoy these tools’ benefits today.
