Creative Concepts: What is a Mood Board?

Have you ever tried to explain a design idea to someone else, but found yourself struggling for the right words to convey the creative concepts you have in mind? The feelings and images related to a good brand design idea can be very difficult to portray using just words. A mood board can be a great tool to use while presenting your creative ideas. It uses colors, images, and textures to communicate the exact aesthetic of your brand and create the feeling that your design is intended to create for your target audience.

Inspiration

A mood board is a great place to solidify your design concept and pinpoint the direction you want to use for your marketing campaign. Start with one or two specific images that you feel best to convey the brand identity you want to establish. Think about which images could be compared and contrasted with each other to produce different reactions in your audience. Look for other elements that may be combined with these images to further develop the exact tone and mood of your marketing campaign.

Creative Elements to Include

Digital images are a great place to start gathering ideas for your project, but you'll want to use a variety of sources of inspiration. Magazines, books, and other print media can yield a wide variety of different images, textures, and colors relevant to your brand identity.

Find inspiration in the real world, and take pictures of anything that you feel will contribute to the mood and convey the ideas you're looking to communicate to your target audience.

Great ideas can be found all around us, and you should look for anything that inspires you in your environment. Photos of simple things such as a woman doing yoga on the beach, birds in flight, leaves on trees, or stonework on a building can be used to convey thoughts, communicate feelings and add visual texture.

Putting It All Together

Choose the layout you want to use to best combine and present the creative elements of your design. One of the simplest and most effective presentations is to create a collage with the images you've collected. Images and ideas can also be grouped together using borders to organize the layout of your board.

You can also place images and words in sequential order to make the different elements of your concept flow together logically from one idea to the next.

Colors and varying text styles can be used to change the emotional impact of the different elements of your marketing design.

Avoid letting your mood board become unfocused and cluttered with too many ideas. Make sure that the main branding elements can be easily determined, with the other images and ideas all working together to add to the impact of the main ideas. A well-organized board will clearly convey your brand identity, hit all the right emotional notes with your target audience, and allow you to quickly and clearly communicate your marketing design.