Lighthouse Guides
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
