Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (2024)

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Written By Bhagirathy J. Panth

What are mood-boards and why do we need them?

A mood board is a type of visual presentation or a collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. The topics on which these are based vary as per the task you’ve decided to compile it for. It is a common tool used by designers to give direction to their final deliverable, to their end result. Most designers tend to moodpboard when they’re finalising the visual language for their work but in my experience, mood boards tend to help clarify vision throughout multiple steps in the work process. I usually mood-board once at the initial stage, making multiple ones that explore all kinds of directions that I want to expand my final work into. Then, I trim it down as per the ideas that emerge from client interactions and design vision. A more evolved version of a mood-board, called stylescape is an even more effective tool.

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (1)

What is the difference between a mood-board, a look-book and a stylescape?

I think the concept of a mood-board evolved out of the concept of a look-book in fashion design.

A look-book is a collection of a season’s clothing line by a particular design. The clothes features are essentially an artist’s portfolio for that season. Look-books are a common sight in fashion studios, often helping the designers give a direction to their entire teams working on making one idea come to life.

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (3)

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (4)

A Mood-board is design direction for one project. It differs from a look-book in that look-books comprise of multiple ideas which may or may not be unified under a theme. Often, the clothes in one season’s line tend to have no visual correlation to another as they aim to showcase various styles that a person can adopt for that season. A mood-board will address all the minute details that are needed for the completion of a project before the project has come together. It is flexible, the ideas explored in a mood-board are not final and allow room for changes in the final deliverable. This is a tool mostly employed by designers for their use or for the use of their teams.

A stylescape can be seen as a kind of a bridge. This is a mood-board with some mockups of the design direction that you intend to showcase to your client. A stylescape is defined as a design deliverable that aids with the presentation of the design direction you intend to take for a particular project. They comprise of the typefaces, colour palettes, potential logo forms and other visual aids that can help a client understand the look and feel of the final result somewhat. They are similar to style tiles. I learnt this technique from The Futur (they have a helpful course on becoming an expert on this found here), they even have a course on it here. This is a very helpful tool and you can create 2-3 styles capes when you’ve got a final idea of the design directions you want to showcase to your client.You can learn more about these here.

“You’re creating a series of logical decisions so that you know where you’re going to arrive.” - Chris Do on Stylescapes.

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (5)

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (7)

What should a mood-board comprise of?

A mood-board can comprise of anything you desire. The common problem with mood boards is the theme is quite often amiss. So, before you begin creating a mood-board, set the purpose it will be serving. Will you be the only one seeing it? Will there be others working on it that need to understand it just as well as you do? If yes, are you featuring enough visuals for someone else to understand the same thing as you? Often, the effectiveness of a mood-board depends on the purpose it serves in your work process. It can consist of images, colour palettes, core-words that you want a particular design direction to be centered around, design directions that are similar to your vision, typefaces, logo ideas among others.

Some websites that serve a fine-tuned collection of images that can be used as a resource when you’re compiling your mood-board:

Designspiration

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (8)

The top Pinterest replacement, this is a highly fine-tuned website that has a curation leaning towards design. They feature works from artists all over the world and also images that you can feature in your boards.

Unsplash

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (9)

All photographs on this website are loyalty free, meaning free for use without legal issues. High resolution images unified under a visual theme are easier to find here.

WeHeartIt

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (10)

This is one of my absolute favourite websites. The website features a collection of dreamy images that convey a forlorn quality. This is the Pinterest before Pinterest, they even created the concept of ‘hearting’ something instead of liking it. It was originally a website that was featured heavily on Tumblr a decade ago and is still remembered by many of its old users fondly. The images here help to add a humanistic and emotional softness to your mood-boards if your design topics allow for it.

Buamai

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs | Toy Faces | 3D Art (11)

A relatively recent discovery, Buamai is an online treasure for unique images. The curation seems to be highly attuned for works that convey quality design work. They feature artworks, photographs, design inspirations from other creators.

Bhagirathy J. Panth

Communication Designer working as a freelance designer, I shuttle between Pune x Delhi/Gurgaon x Bangalore. I specialise in packaging design, branding and logo design, User Experience Design and Design Research.

https://www.instagram.com/bhagirathyjpanth/

Moodboards: What, How & Pinterest Alternatives — Amrit Pal Singh | Visual Artist | NFTs  | Toy Faces | 3D Art (2024)

FAQs

What is a Pinterest moodboard? ›

A mood board is a creative exercise to organize ideas into one place and focus on a theme. Collecting photos, quotes and videos on a single board provides a visual to your concept. It can also keep you motivated and help guide your project from start to finish.

What is the difference between mood board and Stylescape? ›

A moodboard is simply a collection of 'stuff' for inspirational purposes. A stylescape is more carefully curated, modified and designed (to some part) in line with the brief.

What is the difference between a moodboard and a lookbook? ›

Moodboarding is the next stage of lookbook design inspiration, explaining what inspired the new collection. Fashion designers will add photographs, fabric swatches, and color palettes to their mood boards, visually building up the story and style of the collection.

How does Pinterest really work? ›

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more. With billions of Pins on Pinterest, you'll always find ideas to spark inspiration. When you discover Pins you love, save them to boards to keep your ideas organized and easy to find.

What does a professional moodboard look like? ›

Mood boards are often about picturing a concept. The mood board should contain elements that will show the look and feel of your idea. Add images, files, and any other material or content that helps you deliver your vision and pitch your project.

Do interior designers use mood boards? ›

For this reason, an interior design mood board can be especially useful in instances where concepts are hard to communicate through words. Pro tip: Although interior designers use mood boards, they're also a great tool for in-home use.

What are the two types of mood board? ›

There are two types of ad mood boards: digital or physical. It's completely up to you and your working style to choose the one that best fits your marketing campaigns.

What is a Behance mood board? ›

All Behance members are welcome to create as many Moodboards (formerly Collections), or sets of projects and images, as they'd like. With Moodboards, you can group together different projects and images under a common theme, or just collect your favorites.

What is the disadvantage of moodboard? ›

Moodboards lack realism. By piecing together static images from different sources, the interior designer is unable to bring all of the elements together to make the space feel realistic. Continuity can be a problem and cause the customer's imagination to run wild.

Who uses moodboards? ›

Graphic designers, interior designers, industrial designers, photographers, user interface designers and other creative artists use mood boards to visually illustrate the style they wish to pursue.

What comes after a moodboard? ›

After the mood board stage, it's time to move into style frames, which essentially are a more built-out version of mood boards. Mood boards generally just scratch the surface of what your animation is going to look like while style frames are where you actually start designing your animation elements.

What board do artists use? ›

Hardboard, properly prepared with adequate surface coatings, protect the paint layer from damage that is found in canvas paintings. If artists prefer a canvas painting surface, they can enjoy the look and feel of canvas by adhering it to hardboard.

What is a visual mood board? ›

Summary: Create mood boards to collect visual inspiration, communicate brand identity, and decide on the product's visual direction. A mood board is a collage of images, video frames, patterns, or text that convey a certain feeling at a glance.

What is the purpose of a mood board? ›

A mood board is a type of visual presentation or 'collage' consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. It can be based on a set topic or can be any material chosen at random. A mood board can be used to convey a general idea or feeling about a particular topic.

What is the purpose of Pinterest boards? ›

Boards are where you save, collect, and organize your Pins. You can create new boards from your profile or when you create a new Pin. Use boards to organize your business' Pins so that people can easily browse your profile or explore your ideas.

How do Pinterest group boards work? ›

Group boards are a great way to share ideas and plans. As the owner of a group board, you manage the board's settings . To create a group board, invite friends to one of your existing boards. Add notes to the Pins in your group board for your collaborators to see.

What does a secret board on Pinterest do? ›

Only you ( and anyone you invite ) can see your secret boards. Secret Pins and boards will not appear in your home feed, in search, or anywhere else around Pinterest. If you want to make a new secret board, create a board and toggle Keep this board secret when you name the board.

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